On Li Qiao And His Poetry

Li Qiao was one of man of letters and distinguished officials at the early of Tang dynasty and popular because he was knowledgeable and famous at that time and good at work and writing poetry. This paper attempts to restore true Li Qiao through his political practice and ideological character,explore his achievements of his poetry from the perspective of its content and artisitic features,fairly assess his status in the history of poetry,and to further affirm his special contribution in the evolution from the poetry style of six dynasties to the voice of prosperous Tang Dynasty.Part I: On Li QiaoLi Qiao,an official,having served five kings,experienced a lot of ups and downs in his lifetime especially those in the forty-six years of working in the government.Seeing his whole life,there are many good aspects as well as bad aspects.When he was twenty years old,Li Qiao was a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations. He became an official in the time of Gaozong.The main axis of life in this period was to touch upon political practice,be an emotional scholar,and to be determined to forge ahead.During the period of Wu Zetian,he,as a distinguished official,kept the character of justice.Though he did something disgraceful,good aspects were more than bad aspects.After Shenlong,he became old and was man of letters rather than prime minister.In the government of Zhongzong,Li Qiao was afraid of power and disaster,did many despising things and gave priority to save his life.To evaluate Li Qiao fairly and comprehensively,his time and background should be considered and his one aspect should not give a general evaluation of him.Part II: On the poetry of Li QiaoLi Qiao handed down as many as 210 pieces of poetry,in number just second to Zhang Yue who wrote the largest amount of poetry at that time.In poetry field at the early of Tang Dynasty,as a distinguished figure from Chuigong to Shenlong,Li Qiao and those poets at that time made poetry field most splendid. His poetry was rich in content,diversified in subject and different in form.Judging from the content,the poetry of Li Qiao mainly praised government,chanted things,described frontiers,presented themselves to or said farewell to others, recalled old times or lamented people.As a man of letters in palace,Li Qiao wrote many pieces of poetry to praise government,altogether more than forty pieces.The content waspopular at that time but the language was grand and magnificent.Among the poetry of Li Qiao,the largest proportion of them were those to chant things,128 pieces in total,more than poetry of any poet at the early Tang Dynasty. Poetry to chant things includes 120 pieces and made a precedent in the history of poetry. They were most influential and widely spread among his poetry.As to his poetry to praise government and chant things,future generations were dissatisfied to them,but his poetry to describe frontiers,present themselves or say farewell to others,or recall old times were always appreciated by poet critics.They were magnificent,or fresh or sad or desolate to show us diversified styles of his poetry.As to his artistic features,the poetry of Li Qiao inherited the artistic techniques of Six Dynasties advocating antithesi,allusion,embellishment in writing and rhythm and develeped and explored them. Allusion,art of parallelism and antithesis were widely used in his poetry. In the practice of writing poetry,Li Qiao made tremendous contribution to the formation and development of pentasyllabic regulated verse,septasyllabic regulated verse,pentasyllabic quatrain,quatrain. As to the creation of old style,septasyllabic song lay is worth mentioning. Fenyin Trip was a ground-breaking work of septasyllabic song lay at the early of Tang Dynasty and was admired by future generations.The poetry of Li Qiao had many kinds of styles and characteristics,and their main tune was magnificent and their wording was beautiful.In the literature field of the early of Tang Dynasty,Li Qiao was not concerned about by future generations as much as Chen Zi'ang one of four distinguished poets of the early of Tang Dynasty,but he played the role of throwing a sprat to catch a whale in many ways. His creation of poetry was unique and some pieces of poetry were often praised. He was a man of letters and official who should not be ignored.