Chinese Poetry

Overall the poems from the Tang and Song poets are not bad, but because they do not rhyme I am not a big fan of them.  Any poetry that does not rhyme I have a hard time appreciating what makes it special.  The poems from the two dynasties are similar in their references to nature and family, as well as occasional references to wine. They are so similar actually that if it was not provided to us I do not think I could guess which dynasty each poem came from.  There are differences between them, such as length of the two being the most obvious.  Although these poems are direct resources from each society, I do not think they represent either well.  Both take sad and dark undertones for the most part and both of these dynasties were powerful and thriving.  This is fair to say for any work of poetry in a society.  No individual's perspective can completely represent all parts of a society, especially in a work that is meant to be artistic and most likely exaggerate frequently.  If you were to take it in perspective of today, our music is our most common form of poetry.  However, "Hit me baby one more time" by Britney Spears and "Yeah" by Usher although popular, do not very accurately represent our society hopefully.