Abstract:

The Poems for Imperial Reading is a rarely extant collection of the Tang writings. Its complier was Linghu Chu who had a considerable station and influence in political and literary circles during the turn of middle and late periods of the Tang Dynasty. He was commissioned to complile The Poems, shich should have a special position and value in the history of literature. Starting from an analysis of its selections of poetic genres, poets and poems, this paper makes a relatively exact orientation and interpretation of the style of those poems. What the collection advocated was not a heedless and empty mood pervaded during the reign of Dali, though it embraced largely works written by the poets living in reigns of Dali and Zhenyuan. Its pursuit, as a special and significant case, showed the vogue of poetic writing during the reign of Yuanhe.

Key words: Tang poetry, The Poems for Imperial Reading, Linghu Chu, Yuanhe, genre, style