Tao Qian's Twenty Poems After Drinking Wine

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Brutally honest and deceptively simple, Tao Qian’s “Twenty Poems After Drinking Wine” is one of the most unique and emotionally affecting works of ancient literature, possessing a distinctly progressive voice and enduring style. The preface to the collection establishes a tone by which the subsequent poems all abide, forming a conglomerate of dry humor, slightly sorrowful recollection, and overall simplicity: Living in retirement here I have few pleasures, and now the nights are growing longer, so, as I happen to have some excellent wine, not an evening passes without a drink. All alone with my shadow I empty a bottle until suddenly I find myself drunk. And once I am drunk I write a few verses for my own amusement. In the course of time the pages have multiplied, but there is no particular sequence in what I have written. I have had a friend make a copy, with no more in mind than to provide a distraction (Qian 1011-1012). Tao Qian creates beauty within the midst of human …show more content…

The past is reminisced upon with an unromantic clarity; current trials are discussed openly with a bittersweet frankness. Considering the approach and thematic material of writers in that era, one would expect to find a similar tact and comparable underpinnings to Tao Qian’s works. Conversely, this is not the case whatsoever. Tao Qian’s aptitude serves as a total counterstatement to a significant fraction of his contemporaries, and therein lies the appeal. Conversational, blunt, and informal, Tao Qian’s point of view provide intimate descriptions of humanity found in nature. Elsewhere, for instance in the ninth entry of “Twenty Poems After Drinking Wine,” Tao Qian contemplates on the enduring impact of choices: “You one can learn of course to pull the reins, to go against oneself is a real mistake. So, let’s just have a drink of drink of this together—There’s no turning back my carriage now” (Qian

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