Tang Poetry Stories

Author: Qu Delai Jiang Bo Du Xinguang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: To help a broad readership understand one aspect of the prosperity of Tang Dynasty poetry, as well as explore one reason behind its flourishing, we have compiled this book. Through it, readers can gain insight into how people in the Tang Dynasty were familiar with the literary form of poetry and understand the significance of poetry for them at that time, thereby deepening their comprehension of why Tang poetry thrived. To delve deeper, it may even help readers understand the influence that poetry had on other literary forms, such as fiction, during that era, and shed light on why legendary tales were often combined with poetry—a question of literary history. Each piece selected for this book has a story, and within these stories, poetry is an integral part. Stories that do not meet this criterion are excluded. The original text is not quoted in the writing to save space, but to facilitate readers in comparing with the original, the sources of the stories are indicated at the end of the text. The writing aims for simplicity and clarity, with annotations provided for difficult geographical names, characters, and systems. The annotations are concise, and some challenging characters are annotated with phonetic transcriptions to enhance the understanding of the stories. The selected stories are chosen to hold some significance, but due to the time period in which they were created and the social customs of the era, this goal is not fully realized. The ideas reflected in the stories may differ from our modern perspectives.