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Li Bai's Innovations for Linked Seven-Character Quatrains as Exemplified by "Songs of the Emperor's Excursion to the West" and "Songs of of Prince Yong's Excursion to the East"

Xin Xiaojuan   

  1. Renmin University of China
  • Online:2019-05-25 Published:2019-06-28
  • About author:Xin Xiaojuan, Ph. D., is a lecturer at Renmin University of China. Her research interest is traditional Chinese literature.
  • Supported by:
    the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund (18ZDZ237).

Abstract: Li Bai's "Songs of the Emperor's Excursion to the West" and "Songs of Prince Yong's Excursion to the East" present a chronological and structurally complete narrative, and initiate the mode of writing chronicle with linked seven-character quatrains in the Song dynasty (960-1729). These examples, with their rhetoric of allegory and multum in parvo, inherits the spirit of the yuefu poetry and insert their influence on the practice of Palace poetry by such mid-Tang poets as Wang Jian. These two series of poems, as Li Bai's creation of yuefu with new themes, not only exhibit Li Bai's efforts to create a new poetic style, but also reflect his changed opinions about the future of the dynasty and poetry in the face of the unprecedented changes in the society after the "Turmoil of An-Shi in Tang Dynasty" (755-763).

Key words: Li Bai, Linked verse, Seven-Character Quatrain, Chronicle