BBC World Service - The Forum, Li Bai: The Revered Chinese Poet

Close menu BBC World Service The Forum

• The Forum
• Episodes
• Collections
• Highlights

Main content Listen now Li Bai: The revered Chinese poet The Forum

The prodigious talent and restless life of Tang dynasty's celebrated literary rebel.

Show more

A nomadic wanderer and free-spirited romantic, Li Bai 李白, also known as Li Po, lived some 1300 years ago and yet his poems are still cherished for their wild imagination and effortless artistry. There are many colourful stories about his life but how much can we really know about someone who not only lived so long ago but was also very good at projecting an image of himself as a rebel? And how much of Li Bai's intricate, allusion-rich poetry can be translated successfully into other languages? These are some of the issues that Bridget Kendall discusses with Li Bai scholars Paula Varsano and Wilt Idema, and writer and Li Bai biographer Ha Jin.

(Picture: Li Bai sitting on a tree branch. Detail of the decoration on a large ceramic plate from China, 17th-18th century. Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Show less

Download

Choose your file

• Higher quality (128kbps)
• Lower quality (64kbps)

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Mon 10 Feb 2020 04:06GMT BBC World Service Australasia, Americas and the Caribbean, South Asia & East Asia only

More episodes

Previous

Nefertiti: The beguiling Egyptian Queen

Next

The magic of bronze

See all episodes from The Forum

Broadcasts

• Thu 6 Feb 2020 09:06GMT BBC World Service
• Fri 7 Feb 2020 00:06GMT BBC World Service
• Sat 8 Feb 2020 14:06GMT BBC World Service News Internet
• Sun 9 Feb 2020 14:06GMT BBC World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
• Sun 9 Feb 2020 15:06GMT BBC World Service Online, Australasia, UK DAB/Freeview, News Internet & Europe and the Middle East only
• Mon 10 Feb 2020 03:06GMT BBC World Service Online & UK DAB/Freeview only
• Mon 10 Feb 2020 04:06GMT BBC World Service Australasia, Americas and the Caribbean, South Asia & East Asia only

Show more / Show less

Featured in...

• Classic literature: Reading between the lines—The Forum

  From Moby Dick to the Moomins, exploring the books that captured the world's imagination

Podcast

• The Forum

  The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

Related Links

• Paula Varsano (ealc.berkeley.edu)
• Wilt Idema (ealc.fas.harvard.edu)
• Ha Jin: Banished Immortal (a review) (asianreviewofbooks.com)

Related Content

Similar programmes

By genre:

• Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media

By format:

• Documentaries

• Online schedule
• Help & FAQs
• Contact us
• News in more than 40 languages