Tang Poetry browser. 40 of the canonical 300 Tang poems (Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Bai Juyi, Li Shangyin) with pinyin + English title + historical context.
Tang Poetry Browser (唐诗三百首精选)
How to use
Multiple search modes
Title (静夜思), poet (李白 / Li Bai), verse (明月光), or English keyword (spring, autumn).
Read the full poem
Each entry shows full text + pinyin + English title + historical context.
Browse all 40
40 curated below (out of 320 in the original anthology) — ordered roughly by era.
Share
Right-click screenshot or copy lines — works for teaching, social media, study groups.
"300 Tang Poems" — most important Chinese poetry anthology
《唐诗三百首》 ("300 Tang Poems") was compiled by Qing-dynasty scholar Sun Zhu (heng-tang tui-shi) in 1763. Actually contains 320 poems — "300" was a round-number convention. It is the single most influential poetry anthology in Chinese history — nearly every Chinese person has memorised some of these in school.
The four great Tang poets
(1) Li Bai (701-762) — the "Poet Immortal", Romantic school. Key: Quiet Night Thoughts, Bring in the Wine, Drinking Alone Under the Moon. (2) Du Fu (712-770) — the "Poet Sage", Realist school. Key: Climbing High, Spring View, Thatched Cottage Wrecked by Autumn Wind. (3) Wang Wei (701-761) — the "Poet Buddha", Pastoral school. Key: Deer Park, Autumn Evening in the Mountains. (4) Bai Juyi (772-846) — the "Poet Demon", Popular school. Key: Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Song of the Pipa.
""Read 300 Tang poems till you know them — and even one who cannot compose poetry will recite verse" — Sun Zhu\'s original preface. 250+ years on, still the bedrock of Chinese poetry learning."
4 sub-periods
Tang poetry divides into 4 eras: Early Tang (618-712, Chen Zi\'ang, Wang Bo), High Tang (713-765, Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Meng Haoran), Mid Tang (766-835, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan), Late Tang (836-907, Du Mu, Li Shangyin). Each has a distinct stylistic signature.
SG / MY / HK / TW education
Chinese-language curricula in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan all require memorising Tang poems — core to Chinese cultural identity. The 40 poems in this tool are the shared memory set — nearly all pre-1980-born Chinese can recite most of these.
10 facts about Tang poetry
The complete Quan Tang Shi (全唐诗) contains 48,900 poems by 2,873 poets.
"300 Tang Poems" is Sun Zhu's 1763 curation — actually 320 poems; "300" is a round-number convention.
"Quiet Night Thoughts" is the most-read Chinese poem in the world — just 20 characters.
Du Fu's "Climbing High" is hailed as the "greatest 7-char regulated verse ever" — 56 chars, all lines parallel, all rhyming.
Li Bai left ~1,000 poems, Du Fu ~1,400, Bai Juyi ~2,800 — Bai Juyi has the largest extant corpus.
Li Bai: "one peck of wine, a hundred poems" — Du Fu's description. The "Poet Immortal" was also the "Wine Immortal".
Luo Bingwang wrote "Ode to the Goose" at age 7 — the youngest poet in the entire "300 Tang Poems" anthology.
"Song of Everlasting Sorrow" (Bai Juyi) is 120 lines long — the longest narrative poem in the anthology.
Zhang Ji's "Night Mooring by Maple Bridge" made Suzhou's Hanshan Temple a national landmark for 1,000+ years. The Japanese revere it deeply — Hanshan became a symbol of Sino-Japanese cultural exchange.
Li Shangyin's "Ornamented Zither" is the most-interpreted Tang poem in history — scholars have debated its meaning unceasingly for 1,000+ years.
Frequently Asked Questions
40 curated poems (the original anthology has 320). Covers the most-memorised + most-representative works.
Qing-dynasty scholar Sun Zhu (heng-tang tui-shi) in 1763. Principle: select 5-char and 7-char verse suitable for learning + memorisation.
The four greats: Li Bai (Poet Immortal), Du Fu (Poet Sage), Wang Wei (Poet Buddha), Bai Juyi (Poet Demon). Other essentials: Li Shangyin, Du Mu, Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan.
5-char = 5 characters per line (e.g. Quiet Night Thoughts, Climbing Stork Tower) — austere. 7-char = 7 chars per line (Climbing High, Bring in the Wine) — expansive. Quatrains = 4 lines, regulated verse = 8 lines.
Each entry has an English title and contextual note. For full line-by-line translations, consult specialist editions (Burton Watson, Stephen Owen).
(1) Mature form: metre, tones, parallelism reached perfection in Tang. (2) Vast subject range: landscapes, pastoral, war, love, social critique. (3) Language peak: the most refined, expressive Chinese ever written.
"300 Tang Poems" (Sun Zhu, public domain) + Zhonghua Book Co. critical edition.
Highly suited! Teachers can have students pick a favourite, screenshot, and discuss — including pinyin, English title, and context.
Currently 40 curated poems. If feedback is active, may expand to 100-300 to cover the full anthology.
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