Li's poetry takes on new qualities sadly, unlike his younger friend Du Fu, Li was not to live to see the suppression of these rebellions.
His early poetry took place in the "golden age" of internal peace and prosperity of the Tang dynasty, but this all changed with the shocking rebellion of general An Lushan when all of northern China was devastated by war and famine. This provides evidence of the changes through which he lived. He tells tales of friends he saw off on journeys to distant locations never expecting to meet again of his own dream-like imaginations embroidered with mystical overtones and of (to him) current events. Li's poetry reflects his own life and places which he visited. There is a well known tale that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon’s reflection in the river in a drunken spree. Translations of Li's poems continue to be made into a wide range of languages and his life has taken on a legendary aspect complete with tales of great drunkenness and persistent chivalry. His poems "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day", "The Hard Road to Shu", and "Quiet Night Thought" are probably his most famous and are still used in schools today. These poems celebrate the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking wine. Together with his friend Du Fu (712–770) he was one of the two most prominent figures in the Golden Age of Chinese poetry (in the mid-Tang Dynasty).Īround a 1000 poems attributed to him have survived, 34 are included in the classic anthology “Three Hundred Tang Poems” published in the 18th-century at the same time as translations of his poems began to appear in Europe. He is a romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights.
Li Po, was an acclaimed even in his own times and in modern times is considered a poetic genius. His family name was Li and he is sometimes known as Li Po and Li Bai due to the difficulty of translating certain early Chinese characters. Li Po was born in 701 in what is now known as Suyab, Kyrgyzstan and died in 762 in Dangtu, China. He is noted for his elegant romantic poetry and for his prolific output: around 1000 poems have survived the centuries in various archives. Also known as Li Bai, Li Po is considered one of China's two best poets ( the other is Tu Fu, both of the T'ang Dynasty).
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