Poetry has always played an important part in Chinese life. A poem may be used to illustrate a painting. Another appears on a tea box or a rice bowl. A third is carved on the bark of a tree in the garden. Poems ornament imperial palaces as well as rustic dwellings; they are placed in the mouths of emperors and on the lips of courtesans; they animate the banquets of men of letters and enliven the meetings of friends. In other words, they have their part to play in all the circumstances of life: birth, marriage, parting, reunion, and death.
From the dawn of Chinese history, there have been poems. Sometimes poetry seems to be the very voice of the people. Thus a great number of poems in the Book of Verses (Shih King), which is the first anthology of poems, dating from the 5th century B.C., describe the actions of daily life, sing the praises of seasonal occupations, and some times criticize bad administrators.
Much later, under the Tang (618-907), poetry became even more remarkable because of its three great representatives: Li Po, Tu Fu, and Po Chu-yi. Poetry was included in the civil service examination and was an essential part of education. All men of letters were poets. They considered poetry an elegant pastime in which they could display their verbal virtuosity. They gathered together regularly to compose poems on given subjects, or to echo one another's poems by using the same meters and rhymes. We can say that these habits are preserved and will last as long as Chinese culture itself.
To what is this preponderant place of poetry in Chinese social life attributable? In my opinion, it reflects both the temperament of the Chinese people and the characteristics of the Chinese language.