Li Bai

Li Bai, also romanized Li Po, was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty, traditionally dated 701 to 762 CE, and is regarded alongside his contemporary Du Fu as one of the two greatest poets in the history of Chinese literature. His verse, prized for its exuberant imagination, romantic sensibility and celebration of nature, friendship and wine, drew on both Daoist and folk traditions and stood apart from the more formally restrained court poetry common in his era. He spent a period at the imperial court under Emperor Xuanzong, reportedly composing poetry to order for court occasions, but fell out of favor and left the capital, spending much of his later life traveling widely across China and living for a time in a form of political exile after being implicated in a rebellion late in his life. Chinese literary tradition holds that he drowned after falling from a boat while drunkenly attempting to embrace the moon's reflection in a river, a story generally regarded by scholars as legendary rather than factual. Li Bai's poetry has remained central to the Chinese literary canon for over a millennium and has been widely translated and studied outside China as well.