Li Shangyin

A one-of-a-kind collection of work by little-known Late Tang poetic master Li Shangyin.

Though the classical Chinese poet Li Shangyin is considered one of the foremost poets of the late Tang era, he has been strangely overlooked in English translation. Perhaps this is partly due to the esoteric nature of his work, which has been debated and analyzed for centuries. In Li Shangyin’s poetry, allusiveness is favored over direct
explanation, and meaning unfurls through layers of mysterious images
that slowly coalesce into an emotional whole. Interweaving an almost
hedonistic aestheticism with a spare and frank fatalism, his poems paint
a picture of simultaneous pleasure and grief, failure and desire, and
above all, a singular nostalgia for the present moment. His unique
collage-like blending of mythological, historical, romantic, and
symbolic imagery continues to be influential among contemporary Chinese
writers and scholars.

In this pioneering, bilingual edition of Li Shangyin’s work, Chloe Garcia Roberts has translated a wide selection of the poet’s verse, and has also included a section of translations by the prominent sinologist A.C. Graham and the scholar-poet Lucas Klein.