Tang Poetry Study

It was the one hundred years from the end of Sui dynasty to KaiYuan (a reign title) that the style of Tong poetry was free from that of Qi and Liang and headed for that of the Grand Tong. Li Shimin, An excellent emperor in Tong dynasty, made positive contribution to poetry history. This article divides into three parts:Li Shimin's biography is different from common people.He fought north and south and established the Tong kingdom. He showed solicitude for his people and had right way to rule his country.So, few years later, Tong kingdom became prosperous.His literature thoughts include as follows: objecting to the style of flowery diction but flat content in Qi Liang dynasty, supporting for the balance between content and form, admiring artificial style and refusing the opinion that politics was decided by literature.The reason that academic circles always arguing on Li Shimin's poetry is because of his special statues, which produced his special poetry style. As a founding emperor, his poetry was grand and magnificent due to the content of uniting the whole country and managing his people. But, as a normal person, his poetry style was elegant and natural which was benefited from the content on mourning or praising his ministers, and singing beauty of nature and goods.Li Shimin was the first class poet in earlier stage of Tong dynasty through comparing with other poets on the poems quanlity and quantity.His literature opinion made positive contribution to the Tong poetry being from the style of Qi and Liang dynasty, and eliciting other poets to analyze and obsorbe the poetic achievement gained by Qi and Liang poets.As an empiral poet, Li Shimin successfully accomplished his historic literature mission when the poetry style was changing from Six Dynisty till Grand Tong.