Li Po Po Li David Hinton Bai Li Popular Books

Li Po Po Li David Hinton Bai Li Biography & Facts

Li Bai (Chinese: 李白; pinyin: Lǐ Bái, 701–762), formerly pronounced Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (太白), was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty and in Chinese history as a whole. He and his friend Du Fu (712–770) were two of the most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry under the Tang dynasty, which is often called the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". The expression "Three Wonders" denotes Li Bai's poetry, Pei Min's swordplay, and Zhang Xu's calligraphy. Around 1,000 poems attributed to Li are extant. His poems have been collected into the most important Tang dynasty collection, Heyue yingling ji, compiled in 753 by Yin Fan. Thirty-four of Li Bai's poems are included in the anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, which was first published in the 18th century. Around the same time, translations of his poems began to appear in Europe. The poems became models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking. Among the most famous are "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day"(Chinese: 春日醉起言志), "The Hard Road to Shu"(Chinese: 蜀道难), "Bring in the Wine"(Chinese: 将进酒), and "Quiet Night Thought"(Chinese: 静夜思), which are still taught in schools in China. In the West, multilingual translations of Li's poems continue to be made. His life has even taken on a legendary aspect, including tales of drunkenness and chivalry, and the well-known tale that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon's reflection in the river while he was drunk. Much of Li's life is reflected in his poems, which are about places he visited; friends whom he saw off on journeys to distant locations, perhaps never to meet again; his own dream-like imaginings, embroidered with shamanic overtones; current events of which he had news; descriptions of nature, perceived as if in a timeless moment; and more. However, of particular importance are the changes in China during his lifetime. His early poems were written in a "golden age" of internal peace and prosperity, under an emperor who actively promoted and participated in the arts. This ended with the beginning of the rebellion of general An Lushan, which eventually left most of Northern China devastated by war and famine. Li's poems during this period take on new tones and qualities. Unlike his younger friend Du Fu, Li did not live to see the end of the chaos. Li Bai is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang. Names Li Bai's name has been romanized as Li Bai, Li Po, Li Bo (romanizations of Standard Chinese pronunciations), and Ri Haku (a romanization of the Japanese pronunciation). The varying Chinese romanizations are due to the facts that his given name (白) has two pronunciations in Standard Chinese: the literary reading bó (Wade–Giles: po2) and the colloquial reading bái; and that earlier authors used Wade–Giles while modern authors prefer pinyin. The reconstructed version of how he and others during the Tang dynasty would have pronounced this is Bhæk. His courtesy name was Taibai (太白), literally "Great White", as the planet Venus was called at the time; according to his biography in the New Book of Tang, this was because Li's mother had dreamt of Venus while giving birth to him. Li's courtesy name has been romanized variously as Li Taibo, Li Taibai, Li Tai-po, among others. The Japanese pronunciation of his name and courtesy name may be romanized as "Ri Haku" and "Ri Taihaku" respectively. He is also known by his art name (hao) Qīnglián Jūshì (青蓮居士), meaning Householder of Azure Lotus, or by the nicknames "Immortal Poet" (Poet Transcendent; Wine Immortal (Chinese: 酒仙; pinyin: Jiuxiān; Wade–Giles: Chiu3-hsien1), Banished Transcendent (Chinese: 謫仙人; pinyin: Zhéxiānrén; Wade–Giles: Che2-hsien1-jen2), Poet-Knight-errant (traditional Chinese: 詩俠; simplified Chinese: 诗侠; pinyin: Shīxiá; Wade–Giles: Shih1-hsia2, or "Poet-Hero"). Life The two "Books of Tang", The Old Book of Tang and The New Book of Tang, remain the primary sources of bibliographical material on Li Bai. Other sources include internal evidence from poems by or about Li Bai, and certain other sources, such as the preface to his collected poems by his relative and literary executor, Li Yangbin. Background and birth Li Bai is generally considered to have been born in 701, in Suyab (碎葉) of ancient Chinese Central Asia (present-day Kyrgyzstan), where his family had prospered in business at the frontier. Afterwards, the family under the leadership of his father, Li Ke (李客), moved to Jiangyou (江油), near modern Chengdu, in Sichuan, when the youngster was about five years old. There is some mystery or uncertainty about the circumstances of the family's relocations, due to a lack of legal authorization which would have generally been required to move out of the border regions, especially if one's family had been assigned or exiled there. Background Two accounts given by contemporaries Li Yangbing (a family relative) and Fan Chuanzheng state that Li's family was originally from what is now southwestern Jingning County, Gansu. Li's ancestry is traditionally traced back to Li Gao, the noble founder of the state of Western Liang. This provides some support for Li's own claim to be related to the Li dynastic royal family of the Tang dynasty: the Tang emperors also claimed descent from the Li rulers of West Liang. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage (隴西李氏). Evidence suggests that during the Sui dynasty, Li's own ancestors, at that time for some reason classified socially as commoners, were forced into a form of exile from their original home (in what is now Gansu) to some location or locations further west. During their exile in the far west, the Li family lived in the ancient Silk Road city of Suiye (Suyab, now an archeological site in present-day Kyrgyzstan), and perhaps also in Tiaozhi (simplified Chinese: 条枝; traditional Chinese: 條枝; pinyin: Tiáozhī), a state near modern Ghazni, Afghanistan. These areas were on the ancient Silk Road, and the Li family were likely merchants. Their business was quite prosperous. Early years In 705, when Li Bai was four years old, his father secretly moved his family to Sichuan, near Chengdu, where he spent his childhood. Currently, there is a monument commemorating this in Zhongba Town, Jiangyou, Sichuan province (the area of the modern province known then as Shu, after a former independent state which had been annexed by the Sui dynasty and later incorporated into the Tang dynasty lands). The young Li spent most of his growing years in Qinglian (青莲; lit. "Blue [also translated as 'green', 'azure', or 'nature-coloured'] Lotus"), a town in Chang-ming County, Sichuan, China. This now nominally corresponds with Qinglian Town (青蓮鎮) of Jiangyou County-level city, in Sichuan. The young Li read extensively, including Confucian classics such as The Classic of Poetry (Shijing) and the Classic of His.... Discover the Li Po Po Li David Hinton Bai Li popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Li Po Po Li David Hinton Bai Li books.