Poems

(Paperback)

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Li Po (CE 701-762) and Tu Fu (CE 712-770) are traditionally regarded by the Chinese as their two greatest poets. Together their poetry encompasses all of human nature. Li Po, whose addiction to wine was legendary, is a poet of the spirit, and his verses penetrate into the human mind and go beyond consciousness. Tu Fu chronicles everyday life with humility and compassion shot thorugh with humour and a sense of desolation. Escapist but earthy, spiritual but realistic, romantic but precise, these two are often appropriately referred to as one poet, "Li-Tu". The Chinese calligraphy in this volume is by Shui Chien-Tung.

Author Bio

Li Po (AD 70162) was born in the far west of China and probably had some knowledge of Central Asian languages and cultures. But to his contemporaries his talent was almost supernatural, so that he hardly seemed of earthly origin at all; his verses seemed to originate in something other than the human consciousness, yet speak directly and simply to the human mind.

Tu Fu (AD 71270) was born near the capital, of a family distinguished for service to the state. While Li Po seems to the Chinese to be a poet of the night and of man as a solitary animal in his dreams, Tu Fu is rather a poet of the day and of man in his other nature as a social animal. Tu Fu's poems chronicle his life and times with social conscience and compassion, but also present a convincing, unselfconscious portrait of the man himself.

Arthur Cooper was a scholar and translator known for the translation of Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems Selected and Translated.