The Poetic Way of Xie Lingyun : Literary Expression and the Natural World

The father of Chinese landscape poetry in time and placeDuring the dark centuries between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the golden age of reunified China under the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279), the shi poetic form embraced new themes and structure.In this meticulously constructed study, Ping Wang traces the social conditions that sparked innovation and marked a significant turn in intellectual history.Using biography, social history, and literary analysis, she demonstrates how the shi form came to dominate classical Chinese poetry, making possible the works of the great poets of later dynasties and influencing literary development in Korea and Japan. Focusing on the life of poet Xie Lingyun (385-433), she traces the exile of aristocratic families in the wild south, which led to their thematic use of “mountains and water” (shanshui) landscapes over the pastoral ones of earlier writers and artists.Changes in poetic form moved away from genres associated with aggrandizem