Monthly Archives: November 2015

T’ang Poetry – The Sun Rises and Sets

The Sun Rises and Sets by Li Bo is an entrancing poem.  When I first read the title of the poem I got a deep sense of tranquility . Still,  as the poem progresses the feeling of the poem changes.  I interpreted this poem as a description of Li Bo view towards the cycle of life.  A characterisation of how every thing that starts eventually ends.  Li Bo gives this idea when he says, “The rise and the ending of all things/ is just the way things are.”  ( Bo, 1023)  At this point in the poem I got a sense of depression from the author.  He refers to the end of things more than once during the poem and gives an example of the trees not caring if they lost their leaves because that is how it was suppose to be.  I wonder if that is how Li Bo felt during his life?  I believe, he felt he had no control over his life and that whatever happen to him was because it was the way life had to be.  By the end of the poem Li Bo sounds like a soul that has given up and is going with the flow of the river of life.