T'ang dynasty had done. The practice of abdicating--in contradiction
with the Chinese concept of the ruler as son of Heaven and the duties of
a son towards his father--seems to have impressed Japan where similar
steps later became quite common. With Hsüan Tsung there began now a
period of forty-five years, which the Chinese describe as the second
blossoming of T'ang culture, a period that became famous especially for
its painting and literature.


5 _Second blossoming of T'ang culture_

The T'ang literature shows the co-operation of many favourable factors.
The ancient Chinese classical style of official reports and decrees
which the Toba had already revived, now led to the clear prose style of
the essayists, of whom Han Yü (768-825) and Liu Tsung-yüan (747-796)
call for special mention. But entirely new forms of sentences make their
appearance in prose writing, with new pictures and similes brought from
India through the medium of the Buddhist translations. Poetry was also
enriched by the simple songs that spread in the north under Turkish
influence, and by southern influences. The great poets of the T'ang
period adopted the rules of form laid down by the poetic art of the
south in the fifth century; but while at that time the writing of poetry
was a learned pastime, precious and formalistic, the T'ang poets brought
to it genuine feeling. Widespread fame came to Li T'ai-po (701-762) and
Tu Fu (712-770); in China two poets almost equal to these two in
popularity were Po Chü-i (772-846) and Yüan Chen (779-831), who in their
works kept as close as possible to the vernacular.

New forms of poetry rarely made their appearance in the T'ang period,
but the existing forms were brought to the highest perfection. Not until