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Chang Chien
Category: Poet
Chang Jian (Chinese: 常建; pinyin: Cháng Jiàn, early part 8th century), and whose name, especially in older English transliteration, appears as "Ch'ang Chien", was a poet of the Tang Dynasty, and two of whose poems were collected in the popular anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.
From A Lute of Jade – Being selections from the Classical poets of China [The Wisdom of the East series] edited and translated by L. Cranmer-Byng and Dr S. Kapadia [1918]
One of the great philosopher-poets of the Taoist school. His life was spent far from the court and away from the sounds of civil warfare, in the endeavour to set himself in harmony with the universe -- to become, in fact, like an Aeolian harp through which all the cords of nature might sweep at will. How far he attained the end desired may be seen in his work, which is penetrated by a sense of profound beauty, recalling the quiet twilight upon the mountain-side, which he so well describes.
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