SOURCE: “Li Po,” in Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems Selected and Translated with an Introduction and Notes, Penguin Books, 1973, pp. 22-37.

In the following excerpt from his translation and study of the poetry of Li Po and Tu Fu, Cooper sketches the details of Li Po's life and provides a general overview of the poet's techniques, style, and artistic concerns.

Although nowhere near as fortunate in that respect as Shakespeare, not a great deal is really known about the life of Li Po.¹ Even the place of his birth, information regularly made available in the most minor Chinese biographies, and its date have been, at least until recently, the subjects of much speculation. This seems all the more curious in view of his exceptional fame in his own lifetime; but it is now generally agreed that he was born in 701 and outside present-day China, probably...