The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) is regarded as the golden age of classical Chinese literature. Compiled by award-winner author William H. Nienhauser, Jr., and Michael E. Naparstek, this is the first English-language biographical dictionary on this critical era in Chinese literary culture. The Biographical Dictionary of Tang Dynasty Literati contains 140 entries, including major figures like Du Fu and Li Bo, as well as entries on lesser-studied figures including Buddhist, Daoist, and women writers. To provide a complete sense of these men and women, each piece contains an overview of the subject's life, supported by translations and close readings of their writing and concludes with a bibliography of original sources, critical editions, translations, and studies in multiple languages. Appended are a literary timeline of the Tang and a glossary of official titles making the Dictionary an indispensable resource for all interested in classical Chinese literature.

Many regard the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) as the most important era for classical Chinese poetry, with around fifty thousand poems from the period surviving to the modern era. The great poets--Li Bo, Wang Wei, Du Fu, Bo--all lived in the Tang Dynasty. Meticulously researched and featuring many examples of their writings, the Biographical Dictionary of Tang Dynasty Literati presents 139 biographies of classical Chinese poets. Compiled by award-winner author William H. Nienhauser, Jr., and Michael E. Naparstek, this book is the first comprehensive dictionary of writers during the Tang dynasty. In addition to individual entries, it includes an overview of Tang literature, a literary timeline of the Tang, and an explanation of official titles and ranks, making it an indispensable resource for anyone interested in classical Chinese poetry.

This volume of the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women completes the four-volume project and contains more than 400 biographies of women active in the Tang through Ming dynasties (618-1644). Many of the entries are the result of original research and provide the only substantial information on women available in English. Of note is the inclusion of a large number of women who reached positions of authority during this period as well as women artists and writers, especially poets, during this period of increased female literacy and more liberal social attitudes to women's cultural roles. Wherever possible, entries incorporate translations of poems and sometimes prose works so as to let the women speak for themselves. The book also includes a multitude of entertainers and actresses. The volume includes a Guide to Chinese Words Used, a Chronology of Dynasties and Major Rulers, a Finding List by Background or Fields of Endeavor, and a Glossary of Chinese Names. It will prove to be a useful tool for research and teaching.

Analysis of a seventh-century Chinese anthology on imperial governance

This new volume of the "Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women" spans more than 2,000 years from antiquity to the early seventh century. It recovers the stories of more than 200 women, nearly all of them unknown in the West. The contributors have sifted carefully through the available sources, from the oracle bones to the earliest legends, from Liu Xiang's didactic Biographies to official and unofficial histories, for glimpses and insights into the lives of women. Empresses and consorts, nuns and shamans, women of notoriety or exemplary virtue, women of daring and women of artistic or scholarly accomplishment - all are to be found here. The editors have assembled the stories of women high born and low, representing the full range of female endeavor. The biographies are organized alphabetically within three historical groupings, to give some context to lives lived in changing circumstances over two millennia. A glossary, a chronology, and a finding list that identifies women of each period by background or field of endeavor are also provided.

"This volume supplements Tang Tales, A Guided Reader (Volume 1; 2010) and presents twelve more Tang tales, going beyond the standard corpus of these narratives to include six stories translated into English for the first time. The rich annotation and translator's notes for these twelve tales provide insights into many aspects of Tang material culture and medieval thought, including Buddhism and Daoism. In addition to meticulously annotated translations, the book offers original texts (with some textual notes), and commentaries in the form of translator's notes, thereby joining the first volume of Tang tales as the only collections that introduce students to Tang tales while also challenging specialists interested in the field."--