The abridgement of famous Tang Dynasty poetry by later generations

Abstract

Some famous Tang Dynasty poems were once abridged by later generations. The earliest abridgements occurred in the Tang Dynasty because the music officials in charge of music intended to make the poems suitable for singing. However, the success of some abridgements was attributed to literary creation. Among the various abridgements of the famous Tang poems, the most successful instances formed a truncated verse by segmenting four lines from the original works. The author holds that this phenomenon in literary history indicated the pursuit of terseness, which was a popular feature of ancient Chinese poetic creation. Moreover, it also reflected the later poets’ criticism and amended the artistic criterion of the Tang poetry.

Key words： the Tang poetry; famous pieces; abridgement; truncated verse