Li He (790-816) holds a place in China's poetic history somewhat outside the mainstream but in
every generation of readers there have been those who have found his intense and often cryptic
lyrical visions irresistibly fascinating and utterly without parallel. He is renowned
particularly for his lyrical reimaginings of song traditions from the ancient past and his
premature death along with the otherworldly quality of many of his works led later readers to
view him as the emblematic cursed poet whose fascination with ancient history with ghosts
and with celestial and demonic beings seemed to presage the brevity of his own existence. Li
He's style and diction are often idiosyncratic and even hermetic and his work presents
daunting challenges to readers wishing to follow the flights of his imagination or simply to
construe the basic sense of his language. This volume presents close translations of all of Li
He's poetry in facing-page format with the original texts with explanatory notes on literary
and historical references and difficult points of interpretation along with endnotes briefly
discussing textual variants and other technical matters. Taken together these features will be
a welcome aid to readers wishing to explore Li He's poetic worlds first-hand.
