Lore and Verse

Explores how poetry was used to disseminate and interpret history in early medieval China. Lore and Verse is the first English-language book dedicated entirely to studying poems on history ( yongshi shi ) in premodern China. Focusing on works by poets from the entire range of early medieval China (220–589), Yue Zhang explores how history was disseminated and interpreted through poetry, as well as how and why certain historical figures were commemorated in poetry. In writing poems on history, poe