The Tang government used Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and all kinds of ideas were inclusive.
The establishment of schools at all levels, the imperial examination system for selecting poets, and the emperor's love and admiration for literature all made the literature of the Tang Dynasty unprecedentedly prosperous. Main items: Tang poetry
Poetry in the Tang Dynasty was unprecedented and reached the peak of China's classical poetry. Tang poetry has a wide range of themes, schools, styles, popular authors and wide spread, which is beyond the reach of predecessors and can only be imitated by future generations. Regardless of political life, singing history, funeral march in the Deep Palace, frontier bonfires, pastoral landscapes, love songs, vagrancy, chess, calligraphy and painting, etc. , can be described and sung in poetry, and excellent works have appeared. Frontier poems, pastoral poems, court poems, romanticism, realism, unrestrained school, graceful school, a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend. All emperors and princes, gifted scholars and beautiful women, ordinary people and village woodcutters can write poems. The Tang poetry is full of stars, which gave birth to three great poets with world-class influence: Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi. With its profound ideological content and superb artistic level, Tang poetry has become the treasure and heritage of China culture.
The prosperity of poetry in the Tang Dynasty comes down in one continuous line with the cultural contexts such as The Book of Songs and Songs of the South. Classical poetry was inherited and developed by Han Yuefu, folk songs, Jian 'an Qizi, Jin Dynasty poetry and Yuefu poetry in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which created environment and nutrients for the maturity of classical poetry. Before the Tang Dynasty, five-character poems and seven-character poems were basically mature. The rise of the theory of temperament in the Southern Dynasties divided people into four tones, and the use of "flat tones" and the pursuit of "antithesis" made the Tang Dynasty appear rhythmic beauty and writing techniques.
Tang poetry is generally divided into four periods: early Tang, prosperous Tang, middle Tang and late Tang.
Poets in the early Tang Dynasty followed the poetic style of "Gone with the Wind" in the Southern Dynasties, and their works lacked true feelings and substantial contents. After Chen Ziang entered the literary world, he vigorously advocated the reform of poetic style. His poems are rich in content, rich in emotion and simple in language, which opens up a new road for the development of Tang poetry. Chen Ziang is also known as the pioneer of the innovation of Tang poetry.
The prosperous Tang Dynasty was the prosperous period of classical poetry, with the greatest achievements and numerous poets. Pastoral schools include Meng Haoran and Wang Wei; Frontier poems include Gao Shi and Cen Can; Li Bai, a romantic poet, and Du Fu, a realistic poet, respectively represent the highest peaks of these two schools and are called "Du Li". Meng Haoran's "I'm awake at dawn, and birds are singing all around", Gao Shi's "In late autumn, the gray sand, the grass are all withered, and the solitary wall is full of watchers", and Cen Can's "On this September night, the wheel tower is cold, and the valley is full of gravel, like pecking measures, so it goes down, heads down, with the wind" are all famous sentences. Li Bai's poems and songs are rich in imagination, exaggerated in artistic techniques, fresh and exciting in rhyme, heroic in style and vivid in language, reaching the peak of romanticism; Du Fu's poems profoundly reflect the historical process of Tang Dynasty from prosperity to decline. Their style is gloomy and vigorous, and their artistic achievements are superb, which represents the highest peak of realistic poetry. Li Bai's difficult Shu Dao, looking at Lushan Waterfall, and Du Fu's "Three Officials and Three Farewells" are all eternal songs.
Eternal glory, fame and fortune moved four times.
-Bai Juyi praised Li Bai and Du Fu, from "Reading Du Li's Poems, Because of the Title Volume".
In the middle Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi advocated the reform of poetry, and put forward that "poetry should be combined with things" and poetry should reflect real life. His poetic language is well-known and widely circulated in ancient Korea and ancient Japan.
In the late Tang dynasty, the Tang empire was dying, and the poet was full of feelings of worrying about the country and the people. Du Mu and Li Shangyin are known as "Little Du Li". They write historical poems, borrowing the ancient to satirize the present and make people cry, such as "riding a princess in the world of mortals, no one knows it is litchi" and so on. See: Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan
In the Tang Dynasty, prose was the highest achievement, and the representatives were Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan. Representative essays include Shi Shuo, ZaShuo, Qian Lv and Snake Catcher Shuo.
Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan opposed the "parallel prose" which only emphasized form and empty content since Wei and Jin Dynasties, and advocated learning and carrying forward the prose of the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties and creating prose with lively form and substantial content. Han Yu's writing language is concise and magnificent, while Liu Zongyuan's writing is vivid and profound. Both of them have contributed to classical prose.