Table of Contents

Volume 1

1 Chen Zi’ang and the Jian’an Spirit: the romantic tradition in ancient Chinese poetry

2 The High Tang Atmosphere

3 Symbols at the peak of the Tang poetry

4 How did landscape poetry come into being?

5 Language of the Tang poetry

6 Metrical patterns of the Tang poetry

7 Vitality and new prototypes of poetry

Volume 2

1 The four great Tang poets

2 The poet Li Bai

3 On exaggeration in Li Bai’s poetry

4 Starting with the characteristics of the Tang poetry

5 A note on the Tang poetry

6 A note on frontier fortress poetry

7 Wang Zhihuan’s “Song of Liangzhou”

8 On Liangzhou

9 “Ancient Style: compassion for peasants”: an integration of realism and romanticism

10 Spring is late, the green wild graceful

11 On a poem by Xie Tiao

12 On Yu Xin’s poem about Zhaojun

13 On Wang Changling’s “Out of the Fortress”

14 On Meng Haoran’s innocent enjoyment

15 On Wang Wei’s “Song of Weicheng”

16 On Wang Wei’s “Farewell in the Mountain”

About the Author

Lin Geng was a literary historian, a scholar in ancient Chinese literature, and a modern poet. He was a professor and doctoral supervisor of Peking University. His poetic and rational qualities interact in his writing and research, forming a distinct characteristic rarely seen in the literary world.