| Chapter 1: | Poetry and Political Thought |
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wealth and power or military connections for their political positions. The period of the 740s and early 750s was a time of serious instability at court, plots and counterplots, surrounding Li Linfu 李林甫 (683–752) and his associates and enemies, which led to a number of purges and executions. It was during this period that An Lushan began to play an important role in court affairs through his association with Li Linfu. An also developed a close association with the politically astute and powerful concubine Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 (719–756). Yang over time had succeeded in gaining noble ranks for members of the Yang clan and in having a number of relatives appointed to top positions in the imperial bureaucracy, including Yang Guozhong 楊國忠 (d. 756), who eventually rose to a position of power equal to that of Li Linfu. In 752, the year Du composed the first of the poems studied here, an attempted coup in the context of sharp factional conflict between Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong came to a climax with further purges and executions. That same year, Li died and was replaced as chief minister by Yang, who proceeded to implicate and purge the remaining associates of Li who still held positions, and thereby became a virtual dictator. Factional conflict then became a matter of a power struggle between An Lushan, one of the most powerful non-Chinese frontier governors with extensive connections at court, and Yang Guozhong, the dominant political power in the capital, whose clear interest was to reduce the political and military power of the frontier governors, particularly An Lushan, who was a threat to his position. The result of this conflict was An’s rebellion in 755, which ended Xuanzong’s reign as emperor and nearly destroyed the dynasty. All through the 740s and 750s, the literati class saw its numbers at the top of the court and government bureaucracy dwindle as the aristocratic factions vied for power with what the literati saw as highly destabilizing consequences. This state of affairs is represented and referred to throughout nearly all of the poems studied here. “Climbing the Pagoda” features a representation of Xuanzong’s court. This representation is not portrayed in realistic diction but rather in symbolic tropes widely used and easily recognized as stand-ins for the political figures of the day, as readers shall see in the