ABSTRACT
Simplistic faith in a sequence of generic “golden ages” in Chinese literary history would have the reader believe that the fu passed its peak with the fall of the Han dynasty. The large-scale or epideictic fu characteristic of the Han dynasty was still written during the T’ang. Continuing a trend evident during the Nan-pei-ch’ao period, T’ang rhapsodists were partial to the hsiao-fu. Hundreds of more beauties and curiosities could be adduced. Western study of T’ang poetry during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, pursued mostly in France and Germany and only sporadically elsewhere, was mainly circumscribed by the works found in the Tang-shih san-pai-shou. In the past decade, some Chinese scholars on both the mainland and Taiwan have begun to study T’ang fu seriously. A few individuals on this continent have done so too; perhaps more will take up the challenge.
