Li Shangyin is one of the most outstanding poets in the late Tang Dynasty. He is good at poetry creation and has high literary value in parallel prose.
Wen, born in a declining aristocratic family, failed many exams and lived a mediocre life. Rich in genius, quick thinking, every time he enters the exam, he puts the official rhyme into eight rhymes and eight forks, so he is also known as the "literary octagon"
Characteristics of Li Shangyin's Poems
Li Shangyin's poetry is unique in the late Tang Dynasty, because he is sentimental and devoted to it. He uses many works to express the feelings of late Tang scholars and their persistence in love, thus creating a new style and a new realm of poetry. His poems are novel in conception and beautiful in style, especially some love poems and untitled poems, which are lingering and memorable.
In addition, Li Shangyin used subtle and hazy expression techniques to the extreme, but some poems were too obscure and puzzling to be solved. There was a saying that "poets always loved Quincy, but only hated that no one wrote Jian Zheng".