Li Shang-Yin

Li Shang-yin (lē` shăng'-yĭn`), 813?–858, Chinese poet. Of his 598 extant works, the best known are untitled love poems that describe in rich, sensuous detail scenes of beautiful courtesans languishing in ornate boudoirs. Li also wrote more conventional poems—verses to friends and family, political satires, depictions of particular objects—and parallel prose essays.

Bibliography

See study by J. J. Y. Liu (1969).

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Li Shang-Yin 

(also Li I-shan). Born 813; died 858. Chinese poet.

Li Shang-yin left a heritage of many poems, which are superb in form but often difficult to understand, as was noted even by his contemporaries. Much of his work consists of love and nature lyrics, epistles to friends, and exposés of officials who oppressed the common people. An interest in man and human emotional experiences and descriptions of everyday life, which are characteristic of Li Shang-yin’s poetry, found an even more vivid expression in his prose Sayings, which were highly valued by Lu Hsün.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
In Antologiia kitaiskoi poezii, vol. 2. Moscow, 1957.
Tszatszuan’: Izrecheniia kitaiskikh pisatelei IX-XIX vv. Moscow, 1969.

REFERENCES

Fishman, O. “Iz izrechenii Li Shan-inia.” Sovetskoe vostokovedenie, 1956, no. 4.
Chung-kuo wen-hsüeh shih, vol. 2. Peking, 1959. Pages 254–64.
Lin, J. J. Y. The Poetry of Li Shang-yin. Chicago-London, 1959.