"In the thousand years covered by this volume the shih reached its highest level of development. A lyric form which, using a predominately four-character line, had earlier been employed in the Confucian 'Book of Odes', it rose to prominence once more in the period under discussion. The new shih, which differed from the original form only in its use of a five- or seven- character line, became best known and most characteristic of Chines poetic forms. Some 200 poems, illustrating the most important formal, stylistic, and thematic developments in the growth of shih poetry, are presented here in new translations by Burton Watson. The accompanying background material - critical, historical, or biograhoical - is given in notes to particular poems or in brief essays reating to a group of poems."--Back cover.