Abstract:
The Tang Dynasty enjoyed frequent international exchange and managed to accept and tolerate many foreign customs and conventions. Samarkand’s Golden Peaches——A Study of Objects Imported from the Tang Dynasty, a work contributed by Schaffer, an American scholar of Chinese study, recorded 18 varieties and 170 kind of imported objects from the Tang Dynasty, of which the foreign customs and conventions that appeared in Li He’s poems were the most of all borrowed poems from the Tang Dynasty. Li He’s poems gave a great amount of description to imported objects in the Tang Dynasty such as the barbarian bed, the barbarian music, spices, blanket and silk fabrics. Such was the case with Li’s poems for three reasons. First of all, living and writing in a special historical period, Li He had strong curiosity about something peculiar and reminiscent desire for past prosperous ages and flourishing society. Next, Li’s anguishing psychology drove him contemplate deeply on those metaphysical issues, such as the universe and human life, and as a result, those imported objects served as media for him to perceive external world. Finally, because of his contact with Han Yu, Meng Jiao and the like, his poems were coloured with an illusory and fatanstic layer, which was responsible for large quantities of imported objects that appeared in his poems.
