+ About the Speakers

RELATED TOPIC:
The Book of Songs and China's Literary Tradition

RELATED TOPIC:
Wang Can and the Poetry of Scholar Officials during the Han

RELATED TOPIC:
Poetry of Retreat at the Fall of Han

RELATED TOPIC:
Tao Qian and the Tradition of Retreat

 
PRELUDE TO TANG POETRY
Poetry of the Zhou and Han

Robert Oxnam :: Almost four hundred years of political disunity followed the fall of the Han. After China was reunified in the late sixth century, the Tang dynasty ruled China for three hundred years. Chinese poetry reached its greatest heights under the Tang, and it drew upon the themes of retreat, of nature, of history, and of personal expression first reflected in the poetry of the Zhou and Han times.