Three Hundred Tang Poems

Description

A new translation of a beloved anthology of poems from the golden age of Chinese culture-a treasury of wit, beauty, and wisdom from many of China's greatest poets. In Chinese literature, the Tang period (618-907) is considered the golden age of Chinese poetry. "Tang Shi San Bai Shou" is a compilation of poems from this period made around 1763 by Sun Zhu of the Qing dynasty. It has been used in China for centuries since to teach elementary students to read and write, and also in cultivating character These some three hundred poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907)-an age in which poetry and the arts flourished-were gathered in the eighteenth century into what became one of the best-known books in the world, and which is still cherished in Chinese homes everywhere. Many of China's most famous poets-Du Fu, Li Bai, Bai Juyi, and Wang Wei-are represented by timeless poems about love, war, the delights of drinking and dancing, and the beauties of nature. There are poems about travel, about grief, about the frustrations of bureaucracy, and about the pleasures and sadness of old age. Nearly every Chinese household owns a copy of Tang Shi and poems from it are still included in textbooks and to be memorized by students.

Peter Harris is the founder of the Asian Studies Institute at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, and the editor of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets anthology Zen Poems.