SOURCE: “Li Po's Transcendent Diction,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No 1, 1986, pp. 99-117.

In the following essay, Kroll elucidates some of Li Po's more opaque poems “in light of their precise Taoist diction and imagery.” Nearly a hundred substantive footnotes have been excised from this abridged version of Prof. Kroll's article, as have his more technical discussions of linguistic and prosodic matters and all Chinese characters. For the complete article, see Journal of the American Oriental Society,Vol. 106, No 1, (1986): 99-117.

I. Protasis

Of the several areas of Li Po scholarship still awaiting satisfactory study, perhaps none has been more consistently neglected than the great poet's Taoist connection. Scholars both Asian and Western almost uniformly wink at or miserably misinterpret Li Po's use of Taoist imagery and diction in his poems. It is true that some forays in the topic have been attempted. But...