A key poet at the transition of the current literature from the early to the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yue wrote large quantities of pasture poems during his banishment in the early Kaiyuan years. These pasture poems expressed true feelings and unusual experiences, which indicated a great leap of advancement of pasture poetry writing towards individuality. Zhang as a poet made considerable contributions to the ascendance of pasture poetry to the prosperous Tang style for he was able to learn the strong points from other poets and actively explore new forms and new realms of poem writing.

Zhang Yue; pasture poetry; essence of writing