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Tang Era Poetry

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most celebrated poets of 8th-century China, Li Bai and Du Fu, and their influence from the Tang Era to the present day.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss two of China鈥檚 greatest poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, who wrote in the 8th century in the Tang Era. Li Bai (701-762AD) is known for personal poems, many of them about drinking wine, and for finding the enjoyment in life. Du Fu (712-770AD), a few years younger, is more of an everyman, writing in the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763AD). Together they have been a central part of Chinese culture for over a millennium, reflecting the balance between the individual and the public life, and one sign of their enduring appeal is that there is rarely agreement on which of them is the greater.

The image above is intended to depict Du Fu.

With

Tim Barrett
Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, University of London

Tian Yuan Tan
Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at University College

And

Frances Wood
Former Curator of the Chinese Collections at the British Library

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Available now

47 minutes

Last on

Thu 12 May 2022 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

CONTRIBUTORS






READING LIST

David Hawkes, A Little Primer of Tu Fu (Clarendon Press, 1967)

Peter Hobson (trans.), Poems of Hanshan (Yale University Press, 2010)

Paul W. Kroll, Studies in Medieval Taoism and the Poetry of Li Po (Ashgate Publishing, 2009)

Ira Nadel, Cathay: Ezra Pound鈥檚 Orient (Penguin, 2016)

Stephen Owen (trans.), The Poetry of Du Fu (De Gruyter Mouton, 2016)

Li Po and Tu Fu (trans. Arthur Cooper), Poems (Penguin, 1973)

Jerome P. Seaton and James Cryer, Bright Moon, Perching Bird: Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu (Wesleyan University Press, 1987)

Paula M. Varsano, Tracking the Banished Immortal: The Poetry of Li Bo and Its Critical Reception (University of Hawai'i Press, 2003)

Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Ch眉-i (Allen & Unwin, 1949)

Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po (Allen and Unwin, 1950)

Eliot Weinberger, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei W. W. Norton & Company, 2016)


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Broadcasts

  • Thu 12 May 2022 09:00
  • Thu 12 May 2022 21:30

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