In the twelfth century Chinese civilization under the Song dynasty (960-1280) attained a ripeness that it rarely if ever equaled in later ages. The thinker Zhu Xi (1130-1200) put the finishing touches on his great synthesis of neo-Gonfucian thought; Chinese science and mathematics reached the apex of their development; artists of the Southern Song Academy created landscapes and bird and flower paintings of unparalleled refinement, and although the northern half of China was occupied by foreigners, the Chinese capital at Hangzhou was the largest and most cultured city in the world.

It is no wonder then that poetry in the classical language, the favorite literary art of the upper classes, rose to one of the highest levels ever witnessed. Ci verse, which had first come into prominence during the waning decades of the Tang dynasty (618-907), reached its climax with authors such as Xin Qiji (1140-1207) and Jiang Kui (ca. 1155-1221), while shi poetry, the form that survives in the greatest quantity and that was most highly regarded by Song intellectuals, explored a host of new themes and perfected the many innovations of earlier Song dynasty poets.

Fan Chengda (1126-1193) was one of the three most outstanding shi poets of his generation, and although today he is chiefly remembered for one series of bucolic poems that he wrote on the countryside near his home not far from the modern city of Shanghai, the main purpose of this book is to demonstrate how he excelled in practically every type of poetry known to the Song dynasty literary tradition.