Editing Chinese culture (section)

=== Poetry in the Tang dynasty ===
{{Main|Tang poetry}}
[[File:"Lan-ting Xu" Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, copy by an artist in the Tang dynasty - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|A Tang dynasty era copy of the preface to the ''[[Lantingji Xu]]'' poems composed at the [[Orchid Pavilion Gathering]], originally attributed to [[Wang Xizhi]] (303–361 AD) of the [[Jin dynasty (265–420)|Jin dynasty]]]]
Tang poetry refers to [[poetry]] written in or around the time of, or in the characteristic style of, China's [[Tang dynasty]] (18 June 618 – 4 June 907, including the 690–705 reign of [[Wu Zetian]]) or that follows a certain style, often considered the [[Golden Age]] of [[Chinese poetry]]. During the Tang dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for the civil service exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone.<ref>Jing-Schmidt, p. 256 {{full citation needed|date=March 2019}}</ref> This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. Two of the most famous poets of the period were [[Li Bai]] and [[Du Fu]]. Tang poetry has had an ongoing influence on world literature and modern and quasi-modern poetry. The ''Quantangshi'' ("Complete Tang Poems") anthology compiled in the early eighteenth century includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors.<ref name="columbia 14-15">Paragraph 15 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001.</ref><!-- "Chey, 139, accessed July 17, 2008" may also verify everything here except for the estimate of poems, which was previously given as "almost 50,000". I was unable to check in the GBooks preview. But the Columbia source is better anyway. ~Hijiri88, July 2016. -->

The ''Quantangwen'' (全唐文, "Complete Tang Prose"), despite its name, contains more than 1,500 ''[[fu (poetry)|fu]]'' and is another widely consulted source for Tang poetry.<ref name="columbia 14-15"/> Despite their names, these sources are not comprehensive, and the [[Dunhuang manuscripts|manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang]] in the twentieth century included many ''shi'' and some ''fu'', as well as variant readings of poems that were also included in the later anthologies.<ref name="columbia 14-15"/> There are also collections of individual poets' work, which generally can be dated earlier than the Qing anthologies, although few earlier than the eleventh century.<ref name="columbia 14-16">Paragraph 16 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001.</ref> Only about a hundred Tang poets have such collected editions extant.<ref name="columbia 14-16"/> Another important source is anthologies of poetry compiled during the Tang dynasty, although only thirteen such anthologies survive in full or in part.<ref name="columbia 14-17">Paragraph 17 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001.</ref> Many records of poetry, as well as other writings, were lost when the Tang capital of [[Changan]] was damaged by war in the eighth and ninth centuries, so that while more than 50,000 Tang poems survive (more than any earlier period in Chinese history), this still likely represents only a small portion of the poetry that was actually produced during the period.<ref name="columbia 14-16"/> Many seventh-century poets are reported by the 721 imperial library catalog as having left behind massive volumes of poetry, of which only a tiny portion survives,<ref name="columbia 14-16"/> and there are notable gaps in the poetic œuvres of even Li Bai and Du Fu, the two most celebrated Tang poets.<ref name="columbia 14-16"/>