Du Fu and Li Bai, widely regarded as the two greatest poets in Chinese history, are still quoted by dictators and businessmen, students and dissidents. Lines from their verses have been embedded in the Chinese language for more than a millennium. Both poets were born during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), at the height of its sophistication and influence. In their middle age both suffered the horrors of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), a catastrophic civil war whose warning signs the government had ignored. Within seven years, two thirds of the Chinese population were dead, disappeared, or displaced. The rebellion was put down with the costly military assistance of Uighur troops, but the Tang Dynasty never recovered its former unity.
Source : Poems Without an ‘I’
