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Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, and a part of the Chinese literature. While this last term comprises Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Yue Chinese, and other historical and vernacular forms of the language, its poetry generally falls into one of two primary types, Classical Chinese poetry and Modern Chinese poetry.

Poetry is consistently held in high regard in China, often incorporating expressive folk influences filtered through the minds of Chinese literati. Poetry provides a format and a forum for both public and private expressions of deep emotion, offering an audience of peers, readers, and scholars insight into the inner life of Chinese writers across more than two millennia. Chinese poetry often reflects the influence of China's various religious traditions.

Classical Chinese poetry includes, perhaps first and foremost shi (詩/诗), and also other major types such as ci (詞/词) and qu (曲). There is also a traditional Chinese literary form called fu (賦/赋), which defies categorization into English more than the other terms, but perhaps can best be described as a kind of prose-poem. During the modern period, there also has developed free verse in Western style. Traditional forms of Chinese poetry are rhymed, but the mere rhyming of text may not qualify literature as being poetry; and, as well, the lack of rhyme would not necessarily disqualify a modern work from being considered poetry, in the sense of modern Chinese poetry.

Beginnings of the tradition: Shijing and Chuci
The earliest extant anthologies are the Shi Jing (詩經) and Chu Ci (楚辭). Both of these have had a great impact on the subsequent poetic tradition. Earlier examples of ancient Chinese poetry may have been lost because of the vicissitudes of history, such as the burning of books and burying of scholars (焚書坑儒) by Qin Shi Huang, although one of the targets of this last event was the Shi Jing, which has nevertheless survived.

Shijing
The elder of these two works, the Shijing (also familiarly known, in English, as the Classic of Poetry and as the Book of Songs or transliterated as the Sheh Ching) is a preserved collection of Classical Chinese poetry from over two millennia ago. Its content is divided into 3 parts: Feng (風, folk songs from 15 small countries, 160 songs in total), Ya (雅, Imperial court songs, subdivided into daya and xiaoya, 105 songs in total) and Song (頌, singing in ancestral worship, 40 songs in total).This anthology received its final compilation sometime in the 7th century BCE. The collection contains both aristocratic poems regarding life at the royal court ("Odes") and also more rustic poetry and images of natural settings, derived at least to some extent from folksongs ("Songs"). The Shijing poems are predominantly composed of four-character lines (四言), rather than the five and seven character lines typical of later Classical Chinese poetry. The main techniques of expression (rhetorics) are Fu (賦, Direct elaborate narrative), bi (比, metaphor) and Xing (興, describe other thing to foreshadowing the main content).

Chuci
In contrast to the classic Shijing, the Chu Ci anthology (also familiarly known, in English, as the Songs of Chu or the Songs of the South or transliterated as the Chu Tz'u) consists of verses more emphasizing lyric and romantic features, as well as irregular line-lengths and other influences from the poetry typical of the state of Chu. The Chuci collection consists primarily of poems ascribed to Qu Yuan (屈原) (329–299 BCE) and his follower Song Yu, although in its present form the anthology dates to Wang I's 158 CE compilation and notes, which are the only historically reliable sources of both the text and information regarding its composition. During the Han dynasty (206 BCE−220 CE), the Chu Ci style of poetry contributed to the evolution of the fu ("descriptive poem") style, typified by a mixture of verse and prose passages (often used as a virtuoso display the poet's skills and knowledge rather than to convey intimate emotional experiences). The fu form remained popular during the subsequent Six Dynasties period, although it became shorter and more personal. The fu form of poetry remains as one of the generic pillars of Chinese poetry; although, in the Tang dynasty, five-character and seven-character shi poetry begins to dominate.

Han poetry
Also during the Han dynasty, a folk-song style of poetry became popular, known as yuefu (樂府/乐府) "Music Bureau" poems, so named because of the government's role in collecting such poems, although in time some poets began composing original works in yuefu style. Many yuefu poems are composed of five-character (五言) or seven-character (七言) lines, in contrast to the four-character lines of earlier times. A characteristic form of Han dynasty literature is the fu. The poetic period of the end of the Han dynasty and the beginning of the Six Dynasties era is known as Jian'an poetry. An important collection of Han poetry is the Nineteen Old Poems.

Jian'an poetry
Between and over-lapping the poetry of the latter days of the Han and the beginning period of the Six Dynasties was Jian'an poetry. Examples of surviving poetry from this period include the works of the "Three Caos": Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Zhi.

Six Dynasties poetry
The Six Dynasties era (220–589 CE) was one of various developments in poetry, both continuing and building on the traditions developed and handed down from previous eras and also leading up to further developments of poetry in the future. Major examples of poetry surviving from this dynamic era include the works of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, the poems of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, the Midnight Songs poetry of the four seasons, the great "fields and garden" poet "Tao Yuanming", the Yongming epoch poets, and the poems collected in the anthology New Songs from the Jade Terrace, compiled by Xu Ling (507–83). The general and poet Lu Ji used Neo-Taoist cosmology to take literary theory in a new direction with his Wen fu, or "Essay on Literature" in the Fu poetic form.

Tang poetry
A high point of classical Chinese poetry occurred during the Tang period (618–907): not only was this period prolific in poets; but, also in poems (perhaps around 50,000 poems survive, many of them collected in the Complete Tang Poems). During the time of, poetry was integrated into almost every aspect of the professional and social life of the literate class, including becoming part of the Imperial examinations taken by anyone wanting a government post. By this point, poetry was being composed according to regulated tone patterns. Regulated and unregulated poetry were distinguished as "ancient-style" gushi poetry and regulated, "recent-style" jintishi poetry. Jintishi (meaning "new style poetry"), or regulated verse, is a stricter form developed in the early Tang dynasty with rules governing the structure of a poem, in terms of line-length, number of lines, tonal patterns within the lines, the use of rhyme, and a certain level of mandatory parallelism. Good examples of the gushi and jintishi forms can be found in, respectively, the works of the poets Li Bai and Du Fu. Tang poetic forms include: lushi, a type of regulated verse with an eight-line form having five, six, or seven characters per line; ci (verse following set rhythmic patterns); and jueju (truncated verse), a four-line poem with five, six, or seven characters per line. Good examples of the jueju verse form can be found in the poems of Li Bai and Wang Wei. Over time, some Tang poetry became more realistic, more narrative and more critical of social norms; for example, these traits can be seen in the works of Bai Juyi. The poetry of the Tang dynasty remains influential today. Other Late Tang poetry developed a more allusive and surreal character, as can be seen, for example, in the works of Li He and Li Shangyin.

Song poetry
By the Song dynasty (960–1279), another form had proven it could provide the flexibility that new poets needed: the ci (词/詞) lyric—new lyrics written according to the set rhythms of existing tunes. Each of the tunes had music that has often been lost, but having its own meter. Thus, each ci poem is labeled "To the tune of [Tune Name]" (调寄[词牌]/調寄[詞牌]) and fits the meter and rhyme of the tune (much in the same way that Christian hymn writers set new lyrics to pre-existing tunes). The titles of ci poems are not necessarily related to their subject matter, and many poems may share a title. In terms of their content, ci poetry most often expressed feelings of desire, often in an adopted persona. However, great exponents of the form, such as the Southern Tang poet Li Houzhu and the Song dynasty poet Su Shi, used the ci form to address a wide range of topics.

Yuan poetry
Major developments of poetry during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) included the development of types of poetry written to fixed-tone patterns, such as for the Yuan opera librettos. After the Song dynasty, the set rhythms of the ci came to be reflected in the set-rhythm pieces of Chinese Sanqu poetry (散曲), a freer form based on new popular songs and dramatic arias, that developed and lasted into the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Examples can be seen in the work of playwrights Ma Zhiyuan 馬致遠 (c. 1270–1330) and Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 (c. 1300).

Ming poetry
The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) poets include Gao Qi (1336–1374), Li Dongyang (1447–1516), and Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610).

Ming-Qing Transition
Ming-Qing Transition includes the interluding/overlapping periods of the brief so-called Shun dynasty (also known as Dashun, 1644–1645) and the Southern Ming dynasty (1644 to 1662). One example of poets who wrote during the difficult times of the late Ming, when the already troubled nation was ruled by Chongzhen Emperor (reigned 1627 to 1644), the short-lived Dashun regime of peasant-rebel Li Zicheng, and then the Manchu Qing dynasty are the so-called Three Masters of Jiangdong: Wu Weiye (1609–1671), Qian Qianyi (1582–1664), and Gong Dingzi (1615–1673).

Qing poetry
The Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912) is notable in terms of development of the criticism of poetry and the development of important poetry collections, such as the Qing era collections of Tang dynasty poetry known as the Complete Tang Poems and the Three Hundred Tang Poems. Both shi and ci continued to be composed beyond the end of the imperial period.

Post-imperial Classical Chinese poetry
Both shi and ci continued to be composed past the end of the imperial period; one example being Mao Zedong, former Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, who wrote Classical Chinese poetry in his own calligraphic style.

Modern (post-classical) poetry
Modern Chinese poetry (新诗/新詞 "new poetry") refers to the modern vernacular style of poetry, as opposed to the traditional poetry written in Classical Chinese language. Usually Modern Chinese poetry does not follow prescribed patterns. Poetry was revolutionized after 1919's May Fourth Movement, when writers (like Hu Shih) tried to use vernacular styles related with folksongs and popular poems such as ci closer to what was being spoken (baihua) rather than previously prescribed forms. Early 20th-century poets like Xu Zhimo, Guo Moruo (later moved to the proletarian literature) and Wen Yiduo sought to break Chinese poetry from past conventions by adopting Western models. For example, Xu consciously follows the style of the Romantic poets with end-rhymes.

In the post-revolutionary Communist era, poets like Ai Qing used more liberal running lines and direct diction, which were vastly popular and widely imitated.

At the same time, in Taiwan has flourished modernist poetry, including avant-garde and surrealism, led by Qin Zihao (1902–1963) and Ji Xian (b. 1903). Most influential poetic groups were founded in 1954 the "Modernist School", the "Blue Star", and the "Epoch".

In the contemporary poetic scene, the most important and influential poets are in the group known as Misty Poets, who use oblique allusions and hermetic references. The most important Misty Poets include Bei Dao, Duo Duo, Shu Ting, Yang Lian, and Gu Cheng, most of whom were exiled after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. A special case is the mystic poet Hai Zi, who became very famous after his suicide.

In the early twenty-first century, many of the traditional uses of Chinese poetry remain intact in the modern era. These include relationships between politics and poetry, and also completely traditional practices in folk culture such as posting New Year's couplets. Following Taiwanese poets like Yu Kwang-chung, Yang Mu, Xi Murong and Yang Chia-hsien, many new-generation poets have emerged.

In May 2022, the New Century New Generation Poetry Selection, edited by Taiwanese poets Xiang Yang, targets the millennials poets (born between 1980 and 1999, active from 2000 to 2022) who created modern poetry in Taiwan. It includes 52 poets such as Liao Chi-Yu, Yang Chih-Chieh, Hsu Pei-Fen, Zhuxue Deren, Tsao Yu-Po and Lin Yu-Hsuan.

In February 2024, Zhuxue Deren's poem "Moon Museum" was selected by the Arch Mission Foundation for the Arch Lunar Art Archive. The poem was carried to the Moon by the Odysseus lunar lander for permanent preservation, making it the earliest known Chinese poem to land on the Moon.

However, even today, the concept of modern poetry is still debated. There are arguments and contradiction as to whether modern poetry counts as poetry. Due to the special structure of Chinese writing and Chinese grammar, modern poetry, or free verse poetry, may seem like a simple short vernacular essay since they lack some of the structure traditionally used to define poetry.

General

 * Classical Chinese poetry
 * Chinese art
 * Shi (poetry) (the Chinese term for poetry)
 * Chinese literature
 * Chinese classic texts
 * List of national poetries
 * Modern Chinese poetry

Poetry works and collections

 * Three Hundred Tang Poems
 * Gao Bing
 * List of Three Hundred Tang Poems poets
 * Li Sao
 * Classic of Poetry
 * New Songs from the Jade Terrace
 * Orchid Pavilion Gathering
 * Complete Tang Poems
 * Sun Zhu
 * Wangchuan ji
 * Yan Yu (poetry theorist)

Individual poets

 * List of Chinese language poets
 * List of poems in Chinese or by Chinese poets
 * Poetry of Cao Cao
 * Du Fu
 * Li Bai
 * Poetry of Mao Zedong
 * Qu Yuan
 * Su Shi
 * Wang Wei
 * Guo Moruo
 * Xu Zhimo
 * Wen Yiduo
 * Chou Meng-tieh
 * Luo Fu
 * Huang Ling-chih
 * Yu Kwang-chung
 * Yang Mu
 * Xi Murong
 * Bei Dao
 * Shu Ting
 * Yang Lian
 * Gu Cheng
 * Yang Chia-hsien
 * Zhuxue Deren

Lists of poets

 * List of Chinese-language poets
 * List of Three Hundred Tang Poems poets

Important English translators

 * Archie Barnes
 * Witter Bynner
 * Herbert Giles
 * David Hawkes
 * David Hinton
 * Bernard Karlgren
 * David R. Knechtges
 * James Legge
 * Amy Lowell
 * Bill Porter
 * Ezra Pound
 * Arthur Waley
 * Burton Watson
 * Victor H. Mair
 * Paul W. Kroll
 * Jonathan Chaves (professor)
 * Stephen Owen
 * Kenneth Rexroth

English-language translation collections

 * Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry

Technical factors of poetry

 * Classical Chinese poetry
 * Classical Chinese poetry forms
 * Rime dictionary
 * Tone pattern
 * Rime table

title: Chinese poetry


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Classical Chinese poetry

Classical Chinese poetry is traditional Chinese poetry written in Classical Chinese and typified by certain traditional forms, or modes; traditional genres; and connections with particular historical periods, such as the poetry of the Tang dynasty. The existence of classical Chinese poetry is documented at least as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry (Shijing). Various combinations of forms and genres have developed over the ages. Many or most of these poetic forms were developed by the end of the Tang dynasty, in 907 CE.

The use and development of Classical Chinese poetry actively continued up until the May Fourth Movement, in 1919, and is still developed even today. Poetry created during this period of more-or-less continuous development displays a great deal of diversity – categorized by both major historical periods and by dynastic periods (the traditional Chinese historical method).

Another key aspect of Classical Chinese poetry is its intense inter-relationship with other forms of Chinese art, such as Chinese painting and Chinese calligraphy. Classical Chinese poetry has proven to be of immense influence upon poetry worldwide.

History and development
The stylistic development of Classical Chinese poetry consists of both literary and oral cultural processes. These are usually divided into certain standard periods or eras, in terms both of specific poems as well as characteristic styles; these generally correspond to Chinese dynastic eras, per the traditional Chinese method of chronicling history. The poems preserved in writing form the poetic literature. Parallel traditions of oral and traditional poetry known as popular or folk poems or ballads also exist. Some of these poems have been preserved in written form. Generally, folk-type poems are anonymous, and many show signs of having been edited or polished in the process of recording them in written characters. The main source sources for the earliest preserved poems are the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) and the Songs of the South (Chuci). Some individual pieces or fragments survive in other forms – embedded, for example, in classical histories or other literature. During the Tang dynasty poetry was very important

Classic of Poetry (Shijing)

The literary tradition of Classical Chinese poetry begins with the Classic of Poetry, or Shijing, dated to early 1st millennium BC. According to tradition, Confucius (551 BCE – 479 BCE) was the final editor of the collection in its present form, although the individual poems were mostly older than this. Burton Watson dates the anthology's main compilation date to about the 7th century BCE, with the poems having been collected over the previous four to five centuries before. This, among other factors, indicates a sustained cross-class popularity for this type of poetry, including their characteristic four-character per line meter. The Shijing tends to be associated with northern Chinese vocabulary and culture, and in particular with the great sage and philosopher Confucius: this helped encourage the development of this type of poetry into the classic shi style, the literal meaning of Shijing. Despite their commendation by Confucius, there are no extant samples of any poetry of this style made within the next three hundred years.

Songs of the South (Chu Ci)
Another early poetry collection/genre is the Chu Ci (dated to the Warring States period about 475–221 BCE), which is typified by various line lengths and the imagery and influence of the vernacular associated with the state of Chu, in southern China. One important part of this is the Li Sao, attributed to Qu Yuan. These poems from the State of Chu are among the most important of all Classical Chinese poetry; however, these poems and their style seem to have had less influence on Classical Chinese poetry, at least at first, than did the Shijing collection and style.

Han dynasty
The classic shi poetry, with its four-character lines, was revived by Han and Three Kingdoms poets, to some extent. Among other poetic developments during the Han epoch was the development of a new form of shi poetry, dating from about the 1st century BCE, which initially consisted of five- and later seven-character lines. The development of this form of shi poetry occurred in conjunction with various other phenomena related to Han poetry. The new form of shi developed during the Han and the Jian'an period would become known as "gushi", or "ancient style poetry".

Music Bureau and folk ballads
The Han dynasty witnessed major developments in Classical Chinese poetry, including both the active role of the imperial government in encouraging poetry through the Music Bureau and through its collection of Han dynasty folk ballads (although some of these seem to have been subject to at least some post-folk literary polishing, as in the case of the Shijing). In Chinese, Yuefu, "Music Bureau", is synonymous with yuefu the poetry style, thus the term Yuefu has come to refer both to the Music Bureau's collected lyrics and to the genre of which they are representative and serve as a source of inspiration. Another important Han dynasty poetry collection is the Nineteen Old Poems.

Han fu
The Han dynasty poetry is particularly associated with the fu, as opposed to the shi style of poetry or literature: note, however, that this fu is a different word than the fu (府) meaning government bureau in the term yuefu (乐府; sometimes spelled Yüeh Fu, or similarly).

The most celebrated exponent of this style was Sima Xiangru. Yang Xiong, Ban Gu and Zhang Heng were also important fu writers.

Jian'an poetry
Jian'an poetry refers to those poetic movements occurring during the final years of the failing Han dynasty and continuing their development into the beginning of the Six Dynasties period. Jian'an is considered as a separate period because this is one case where the poetic developments fail to correspond with the neat categories aligned to chronology by dynasty. Typical poets of this period are Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, and Xu Gan. One of the more important poetic developments of this period is toward the odd number, fixed length verse styles also typical of the Tang poetry period. As a result, some of the poetic forms often associated with Tang poetry can be traced back developmentally to some of the forms developed during the Jian'an period.

Six Dynasties poetry
The Six Dynasties (220–589) also witnessed major developments in Classical Chinese poetry, especially emphasizing romantic love, gender roles, and human relationships, and including the important collection New Songs from the Jade Terrace. The Six Dynasties era covers three main periods: the Three Kingdoms (220–280), Jin dynasty (266–420), and Southern and Northern dynasties (420–589). The Three Kingdoms period was a violent one, a characteristic sometimes reflected in the poetry or highlighted by the poets' seeking refuge from the social and political turmoil by retreating into more natural settings, as in the case of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. The Jin dynasty era was typified poetically by, for example, the Orchid Pavilion Gathering of 42 literati; the romantic Midnight Songs poetry; and, Tao Yuanming, the great and highly personal poet who was noted for speaking in his own voice rather than a persona. Some of the highlights of the poetry of the Northern and Southern Dynasties include the Yongming poets, the anthology collection New Songs from the Jade Terrace, and Su Hui's Star Gauge.

Sui poetry
Although poetry continued to be written, and certain poets rose in prominence while others disappeared from the landscape, the brief Sui dynasty (581–618 CE) lacks distinction (in terms of the development of Chinese poetry); though it nonetheless represents a continuity between the Six Dynasties and the poetry of Tang. Sui dynasty poets include Yang Guang (580–618), who was the last Sui emperor (and a sort of poetry critic); and also, the Lady Hou, one of his consorts.

Tang poetry
The Tang dynasty (618–907) was particularly noted for its poetry, especially the shi forms such as jueju and lüshi. This poetry was both a pervasive social phenomenon throughout the Tang literate classes, who developed the ability to compose poems on demand as part of the Imperial examination system, but also a social grace necessary for polite conduct on social occasions, such as part of the interaction at banquets or social gatherings. Some 50,000 poems survive, mostly represented in the Ming dynasty collection the Complete Tang Poems. Their popularity in the historical Chinese cultural area has varied over time, with certain authors coming in and out of favor and others permanently obscure. Some authors, such as Li Bai (also known as Li Po), Du Fu, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin and Bai Juyi (also known as Po Chü-i) managed to maintain consistent popularity.

Tang poetry has developed an ongoing influence on world literature and modern and quasi-modern poetry; for instance, as in the case of Li Bai whose modern influence extends as far as Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Beat poetry. In part because of the prevalence of rhymed and parallel structures within Tang poetry, it also has a role in linguistics studies, such as in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese pronunciation.

Song dynasty poetry
The Song dynasty (960–1279) was noted for its poetry, perhaps especially the development of the Ci form; indeed, the ci as a poetic form perhaps reached a high point during the Song dynasty. The ci is a kind of lyric poetry using a poetic meter based upon certain patterns of fixed-rhythm formal types, of which there were about 800 of these set patterns, each associated with a particular title. Originally ci were written to be sung to a specific tune of that title, with set rhythm, rhyme, and tempo. However, over time the actual tunes seem to have disappeared (similarly to the case of English ballads). Thus, the title of a certain ci may have nothing to do with its contents, although the poetic meter is the same. It is common for several ci to share the same title. As developed during the Song poetic period, the ci was a versatile verse form. The most prominent ci-poets include Su Shi (Dongpo), Xin Qiji, Li Qingzhao, Liu Yong and Zhou Bangyan.

The shi of the Song dynasty drew on a long tradition of poetry, perhaps especially the "shi" forms which were prevalent in the Tang dynasty. The Song dynasty is known for its achievements in the combination of shi, painting, and calligraphy into a shared art form. Prominent Song shi-poets include Su Shi (Dongpo), Huang Tingjian, Ouyang Xiu, Lu You and Yang Wanli.

The Southern Song dynasty which ruled southern China from 1127 to 1279 was largely co-existent with the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234), which had established control over northern China and its largely Chinese population. The Chinese poets of the Jin dynasty produced poetry which shared the characteristics of the Song dynasty poetry; and towards the end of the Jin, the poetry begins to similarly show the effects of the Mongol invasions that eventually led to the establishment of the Yuan dynasty with its own characteristic poetry. By far the greatest of Jin dynasty poets was Yuan Haowen. After the fall of the Jin, he lived on for several more decades under the Yuan. According to the Japanese scholar Yoshikawa Kōjirō, Yuan Haowen "may well be the foremost Chinese poet from Du Fu to the present" (John Timothy Wixted's translation).

Yuan dynasty poetry

Poetry during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) continued the Classical Chinese poetry tradition and is especially noted for the burgeoning of Chinese opera verse tradition. Yuan drama's notable qu form was set to music, restricting each individual poem to one of nine modal key selections and one of over two hundred tune patterns. Depending on the pattern, this imposed fixed rhythmic and tonal requirements that remained in place for future poets even if its musical component was later lost. A full drama is called zaju. Besides zaju, some poets wrote qu form of poems independent of a drama. This kind of independent qu is called sanqu. Sanqu is classified into xiaoling, a single song, and taoshu, a song suite formed by combining more than one xiaoling. A lot of writers wrote both full dramas as well as sanqu. Noteworthy Yuan qu-poets include Bai Pu, Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, Zheng Guangzu and Qiao Ji.

One exponent of the popular West Lake landscape poetry that flourished at this time was the always skilful and elegant, if sometimes too facile, poet Zhang Kejiu.

Another interesting development during the Yuan dynasty was the incorporation into the Chinese literary canon of a cluster of gifted non-Han poets, such as the Khitan Yelü Chucai, the Muslim Sadula ("perhaps the best poet of the Yuan" according to Stephen H. West), the Ongüt Ma Zuchang and the Karluk Nai Xian.

A painter-poet tradition also thrived during the Yuan period, including masterful calligraphy done by, for example, Ni Zan and Wu Zhen. Another exemplar was Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322), a former official of the Song dynasty who served under the Mongol administration of the Yuan and whose wife Guan Daosheng (1262–1319) was also a painter-poet and calligrapher.

Ming dynasty poetry
Classical Chinese poetry continued to thrive during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Ming prosperity was accompanied by a tremendous increase in population, commerce, and poetry composition. Thanks to educational opportunities made possible by commercial printing and the reinvigorated examination system, a massively larger literate population emerged. This population relied on poetry to express personal emotion and to engage with each other socially. A debate as to whether the Tang or Song poets had achieved the highest heights of excellence solidified a collective opinion that past heights could not be surpassed. With over one million surviving Ming poems, modern critics and researchers have been unable to definitively answer whether that conviction is a prejudice or a fact.

Leading Ming poets include Gao Qi, Li Dongyang, and the publisher-poet Yuan Hongdao. Representatives of the dramatist-poet tradition include Tang Xianzu and Li Yu. Li Yu is also a prime example of the Ming-Qing transition's emotional outpouring when disorder swept away Ming stability as the incoming dynasty's Manchu warriors conquered from North to South. Another example of the poetic focus on emotion during this period is Dong Xiaowan. Ming representatives of the painter-poet tradition include Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, and Wen Zhengming.

Qing dynasty poetry
Classical Chinese poetry continued to be the major poetic form of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). This was also a time of related literary developments, such as the collection of Tang poetry under the Kangxi Emperor. The debates, trends, and widespread literacy of the Ming period began to flourish once again after the Qing dynasty had established its dominance. The fresh poetic voice of Yuan Mei has won wide appeal, as have the long narrative poems by Wu Jiaji. Kunqu opera matured and led toward the later Chinese opera tradition of combined drama, poetry, and music. The painter-poet tradition thrived with exemplars such as Yun Shouping.

The challenge for modern researchers grew as even more people became poets and even more poems were preserved, including (with Yuan Mei's encouragement) more poetry by women. In 1980 fine shi poems by the famed Qing novelist Liu E were published for the first time, illustrating the potential to continue finding sunken treasure in the vast body of surviving Qing poetry.

Post-Qing Classical Chinese poetry
Although Qing is the last Chinese dynasty, this did not mean that Classical Chinese poetry disappeared with the end of the imperial period; indeed, Mao Zedong of the Chinese Communist Party was a major exponent and practitioner of Classical Chinese poetry well into the 20th century. However, the development and great expansion of modern Chinese poetry is generally thought to start at this point in history, or shortly afterwards.

Oral nature of poetry
One important aspect of Classical Chinese poetry is that it was generally designed to be chanted or sung, with or without musical accompaniment. In fact, folk poetry, almost by definition, was orally composed and orally transmitted. This is because the "folk" were for the most part illiterate, as opposed to the generally literate scholarly classes; however, even the poems of the scholarly classes were intended to be sung or chanted.

Characteristics of written poetry
The particular characteristics of the Chinese writing system played an important role in Chinese poetry. In fact, a continuous poetic tradition in China was enabled in part by the fact that Chinese words can be represented by their corresponding Chinese characters semi-independently of their pronunciation (which extends to their use in classical versions of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese). The pronunciations of spoken Chinese changed quite a bit over the course of time from the oldest surviving written Chinese poetry (in Old Chinese), through the Middle Chinese period (which included the Tang dynasty), and up into the Modern Chinese period. During this course of development, Classical Chinese evolved as a distinct literary language, distinct from the spoken vernacular. The tension between a spoken vernacular and a literary form of the language worked both ways, the poetry of literature can be seen to have "various degrees of vernacular overlay" and also the oral folk poetry sometimes were "filled with literary phrases and constructions", perhaps due to the prestigious nature of the written language.

Influence of Chinese writing system
Scholars have also asked to what degree the pictorial element latent in Chinese characters informed Classical Chinese poetry. The etymology of Chinese characters is related but distinct from the evolution of the language itself. As is the case with many ancient writing systems, such as the Phoenician alphabet, many of the earliest characters likely began as pictograms, with a given word corresponding to a picture representing that idea.

By the time of Classical Chinese poetry, a complex system of writing had evolved with many characters being composed of combinations of other characters, chosen for similarities of meaning and/or sound. The resulting strong graphical aspect, versus a weaker phonetic element (in comparison to other languages, such as English) is very important. However, different translators of Classical Chinese poetry have emphasized these elements in differing degrees. Sinologist and translator A. C. Graham cautions against overemphasizing this visual effect, which he says can "...act on the imagination like blobs in the Rorschach test. It is rather difficult to estimate this effect since a habitual reader of Chinese is hardly conscious of it without deliberately analysing his reactions....Certainly one can give too much weight to the visual aspect of Chinese writing. Poems in China, as elsewhere, are firstly patterns of sound...." However, Graham is in no way suggesting that the Chinese poet is unaware of the background considerations stemming from character construction.

Forms
There are various typical forms in which Classical Chinese poetry was written. These include the shi, the ci, and qu. The fu literary is also often considered to be within the category of poetry.

Genres
Various genres of Classical Chinese poems have been discerned, either by the composing poet or literary critics. The most widely accepted genres of Classical Chinese poetry include the landscape style poetry genres of Shanshui poetry, and Fields and Gardens poetry, which are associated with poets such as Tao Qian and Wang Wei.

Features
Besides various formal modes and genres, Classical Chinese poetry has several other typical features.

Persona
The use of a poetic persona is often encountered in Classical Chinese poetry, in which the author writes a poem from the viewpoint of some other person (or type of person). Often these persona types were quite conventional, such as the lonely wife left behind at home, the junior concubine ignored and sequestered in the imperial harem, or the soldier sent off to fight and die beyond the remote frontier.

Sociopolitical criticism
Many Classical Chinese poems can be read as a commentary upon current events and society. Sometimes this commentary is disguised through the use of symbolic imagery. One popular author who made commentary in this regard was Tang poet Bai Juyi.

Imagery and symbolism
Certain images and symbolism became quite conventional, and are key to understanding many of the Classical Chinese poems. For example, the falling autumn leaf can refer to personal or dynastic decline.

Exile
Many Classical Chinese poems were written as more-or-less subtle or implied complaints for the treatment of the author by the government. This is in part due to the nature of the imperial examination system as a way of recruiting talented persons into high political office, and the expectations of the talented poet of finding a suitable position within such a society. One example of this is the poetry written to accompany of to follow the eight-fold settings of the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang which were popularized during the Song dynasty; although, the theme can certainly be traced back as far as the Chuci.

Allusions
Many Classical Chinese poems involve allusions or references to previous literature or well-known folk material.

Optional precision
In part due to the possibilities inherent in the Classical Chinese language and in part as an esthetic principle, many Classical Chinese poems are imprecise when it comes to gender, number, case, or other logically informative elements of speech which tend to be grammatically obligatory or difficult to avoid in various inflected languages, such as certain Indo-European languages.

Reader participation
Many Classical Chinese poems appear simple on the surface, but contain deeper, more profound ideas. In order to realize what these are, the reader is expected to meet the poet halfway — not just to be told something, but to actively think and feel in sympathy with the poet or the poet's persona.

Parallelism
The arrangement of poems into couplets encouraged the use of parallelism: where for two lines of a poem it would be expected that the reader would compare and contrast the meaning of two lines, which would be specifically marked by the poet by using the same parts of speech in each position, or in certain key positions in each line, or else within one line.

Antithesis
Antithesis refers to the often latent contradiction between two statements which when sufficiently considered can lead to the understanding of a third, unstated opinion. It often plays a part in relationship to parallelism: the reader has to consider whether what seem to be parallel constructions and ideas really are so.

Autobiographic occasionalism
Many of the Classical Chinese poems were written on the occasion of a certain event. This was generally expected to be a fairly spontaneous creation made just for that particular period of time, and sometimes with a fairly limited intended audience in mind. Examples include occasions of parting from a close friend for an extended period of time, expression of gratitude for a gift or act of someone, lamentations about current events, or even as a sort of game at social gatherings.

Collections
Major collections of Classical Chinese poetry include the Shijing, the Chuci, the Complete Tang Poems, the New Songs from the Jade Terrace, the Three Hundred Tang Poems, the Tang era Wangchuan ji, and the poems collected from the Orchid Pavilion Gathering and the Midnight Songs poems from the Six Dynasties period.

Influence
Classical Chinese poetry has been an influence both on modern Chinese poetry but also on the poetry of other languages. One group of languages on which Classical Chinese poetry had an early influence was the cultural exchange with various unrelated neighbouring language families that initiated diplomatic contact with Sinitic speakers. Such interaction happened with speakers of Austroasiatic, Japonic, Koreanic as well as Tungusic and Mongolic (Khitan in particular) languages. A more recent global influence has developed in modern times, including Beat poetry, exponents of which even produced translations of Classical Chinese poetry into English, such as Kenneth Rexroth (One Hundred Poems From the Chinese, 1956) and Gary Snyder (Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, 1959, which includes translations of Hanshan).

Translation into English
Various translators have translated Classical Chinese poetry into English, including Ezra Pound—credited by T. S. Eliot with the "invention of Chinese poetry in our time"—as well as Arthur Waley, A. C. Graham, Kenneth Rexroth, Burton Watson, Jerome P. Seaton, and David Hinton.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Classical Chinese poetry


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Kingdom of Cyprus

The Kingdom of Cyprus (Royaume de Chypre; Regnum Cypri) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. It comprised not only the entire island of Cyprus, but it also had a foothold on the Anatolian mainland: Antalya between 1361 and 1373, and Corycus between 1361 and 1448.

Medieval Cyprus

After the division of the Roman Empire into an eastern half and a western half, Cyprus came under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire. At that time, its bishop, while still subject to the Christian Church, was made autocephalous by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.

The Arab Muslims invaded Cyprus in force in the 650s, but in 688, the Byzantine emperor Justinian II and the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān reached an unprecedented agreement. For the next 300 years, Cyprus was ruled jointly by both the Arabs and the Byzantines as a condominium, despite the nearly constant warfare between the two parties on the mainland. The Byzantines recovered control over the island for short periods thereafter, but the status quo was always restored.

This period lasted until the year 965, when Niketas Chalkoutzes conquered the island for a resurgent Byzantium. In 1185, the last Byzantine governor of Cyprus, Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus from a minor line of the Imperial house, rose in rebellion, and attempted to seize the throne. His attempted coup was unsuccessful, but Komnenos was able to retain control of the island. Byzantine actions against Komnenos failed because he enjoyed the support of William II of Sicily. The Byzantine emperor had an agreement with the sultan of Egypt to close Cypriot harbours to the Crusaders.

Third Crusade
The island of Cyprus was conquered in 1191 by King Richard I of England during the Third Crusade, from Isaac Komnenos, an upstart local governor, Byzantine Prince and self-proclaimed emperor of the Byzantine Empire. The English king did not intend to conquer the island until his fleet was scattered by a storm en route to the siege of Acre (1189–1191). The three ships were wrecked and sank in sight of the port of Limassol. The shipwrecked survivors were taken prisoner by Komnenos and when a ship bearing King Richard's sister Joan and bride Berengaria entered the port, Komnenos refused their request to disembark for fresh water. King Richard and the rest of his fleet arrived shortly afterwards. Upon hearing of the imprisonment of his shipwrecked comrades and the insults offered to his bride and sister, King Richard met Komnenos in battle. There were rumours that Komnenos was secretly in agreement with Saladin in order to protect himself from his enemies, the Angelos family, the ruling family in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.

Control of the island of Cyprus would give King Richard an extremely valuable strategic base to launch further Crusade operations. The English army engaged the Cypriots on the shores of Limassol with English archers and heavily armored knights. Komnenos and the remainder of the army escaped to the hills during nightfall, but King Richard and his troops tracked the Cypriot ruler down and raided his camp before dawn. Komnenos escaped again with a small number of men. The next day, many Cypriot nobles came to King Richard to swear fealty.

Fearing treachery at the hands of the new invaders, Komnenos fled after making this pledge to King Richard and escaped to the stronghold of Kantara. Some weeks after King Richard's marriage to his bride in Limassol on 12 May 1191, Komnenos attempted an escape by boat to the mainland but he was apprehended at Cape St. Andrea and later imprisoned in the castle of Markappos in Syria, where he died shortly afterwards, still in captivity. Meanwhile, King Richard resumed his journey to Acre and, with much needed respite, new funds and reinforcements, set sail for the Holy Land accompanied by the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan and other high ranking nobles. The English king left garrisons in the towns and castles of the island before he departed and the island itself was left in charge of Richard of Canville and Robert of Thornham.

Richard confiscated the property of those Cypriots who had fought against him. He also imposed a 50% capital levy on the island in return for confirming its laws and customs. He also ordered Cypriot men to shave their beards. There was a rebellion led by a relative of Isaac's, but it was crushed by Robert of Thornham, who hanged the leader. Richard rebuked Robert for this execution, since executing a man who claimed to be king was an affront to royal dignity. Some details of the brief English period on Cyprus can be found in the Chronicle of Meaux Abbey, possibly derived from Robert of Thornham, who had a relationship with the abbey.

Knights Templar
When King Richard I of England realized that Cyprus would prove to be a difficult territory to maintain and oversee whilst launching offensives in the Holy Land, he sold it to the Knights Templar for a fee of 100,000 bezants, 40,000 of which was to be paid immediately, while the remainder was to be paid in installments. One of the greatest military orders of medieval times, the Knights Templar were renowned for their remarkable financial power and vast holdings of land and property throughout Europe and the East. Their severity of rule in Cyprus quickly incurred the hatred of the native population. On Easter Day in 1192, the Cypriots attempted a massacre of their Templar rulers; however, due to prior knowledge of the attack and limited numbers of troops, the Knights had taken refuge in their stronghold at Nicosia. A siege ensued and the Templars, realizing their dire circumstances and their besiegers' reluctance to bargain, sallied out into the streets at dawn one morning, taking the Cypriots completely by surprise. The subsequent slaughter was merciless and widespread and though Templar rule was restored following the event, the military order was reluctant to continue rule and allegedly begged King Richard to take Cyprus back. King Richard took them up on the offer and the Templars returned to Syria, retaining but a few holdings on the island. A small minority Roman Catholic population of the island was mainly confined to some coastal cities, such as Famagusta, as well as inland Nicosia, the traditional capital. Roman Catholics kept the reins of power and control, while the Orthodox inhabitants lived in the countryside; this was much the same as the arrangement in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The independent Eastern Orthodox Church of Cyprus, with its own Archbishop and subject to no patriarch, was allowed to remain on the island, but the Roman Catholic Latin Church largely displaced it in stature and holding property.

Guy and Amalric
In the meantime, the hereditary queen of Jerusalem, Sybilla, had died, and opposition to the rule of her husband, king consort Guy of Lusignan, greatly increased to the point that he was ousted from his claim to the crown of Jerusalem. Since Guy was a long-time vassal of King Richard, the English king looked to strike two birds with one stone; by offering Guy de Lusignan the kingdom of Cyprus, he allowed his friend the opportunity to save face and keep some sort of power in the East whilst simultaneously ridding himself of a troublesome fief. It is unclear whether King Richard gave him the territory or sold it and it is highly unlikely that King Richard was ever paid, even if a deal was struck. In 1194, Guy de Lusignan died without any heirs and so his older brother, Amalric, became King Amalric I of Cyprus, a crown and title which was approved by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.

After the death of Amalric of Lusignan, the Kingdom continually passed to a series of young boys who grew up as king. The Ibelin family, which had held much power in Jerusalem prior its downfall, acted as regents during these early years. In 1229, one of the Ibelin regents was forced out of power by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, who brought the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines to the island. Frederick's supporters were defeated in this struggle by 1232 from the Cypriots Forces at Battle of Agridi, although it lasted longer in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and in the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick's Hohenstaufen descendants continued to rule as kings of Jerusalem until 1268 when Hugh III of Cyprus claimed the title and its territory of Acre for himself upon the death of Conrad III of Jerusalem, thus uniting the two kingdoms. The territory in Palestine was finally lost while Henry II was king in 1291, but the kings of Cyprus continued to claim the title.

Governance
Like Jerusalem, Cyprus had a Haute Cour (High Court), although it was less powerful than it had been in Jerusalem. The island was richer and more feudal than Jerusalem, so the king had more personal wealth and could afford to ignore the Haute Cour. The most important vassal family was the multi-branch House of Ibelin. However, the king was often in conflict with the Italian merchants, especially because Cyprus had become the center of European trade with Africa and Asia after the fall of Acre in 1291.

The kingdom eventually came to be dominated more and more in the 14th century by the Genoese merchants. Cyprus therefore sided with the Avignon Papacy in the Great Schism, in the hope that the French would be able to drive out the Italians. The Mameluks then made the kingdom a tributary state in 1426; the remaining monarchs gradually lost almost all independence, until 1489 when the last queen, Catherine Cornaro, was forced to sell the island to Venice.

Economy
The economy of Cyprus remained primarily agrarian during the Lusignan period. Simultaneously, though, the island grew in importance in the trade network connecting Western Europe and the Middle East, serving as an "entrepôt". This led to an increase in demand on Cypriot products (most importantly sugar, but also wine, wheat, oil, carobs) abroad, and the agrarian economy became more export-oriented. This allowed Cyprus to become more prosperous relative to the Byzantine period, fuelling the development of the harbour of Famagusta and the capital Nicosia, enabling the construction of architectural works that survive to this day. Whilst the development of these two eclipsed the other towns, towns such as Limassol, Paphos and Kyrenia did take some part in the changing economic environment. Limassol, in particular, became a port for the export of agricultural products and served as a stopover for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The relative prosperity encouraged migration to Cyprus from the West (Genoa, Venice, Provence, Catalonia) and the East. The Latin immigrants participated in the economic life as merchants, artisans, shipwrights, ship captains and tavern keepers, and as such had an outsize share in the economy.

During this period, new industries also emerged in Cyprus. Cypriot pottery developed particular characteristics, and was exported to the Crusader States until the Fall of Acre in 1291. In the late 13th and early 14th industries, the textile industry developed, with new textile dyeing workshops being set up in Nicosia, and Cypriot samites and camlets having increasing demand in the West and the East. Famagusta became a hub for shipbuilding. These developments prompted the arrival of representatives from Florentine banking houses, such as the Peruzzi and the Bardi family. The growth of the industry as well as the labour-intensive production of sugar and wine resulted in a demand for slaves, and slave markets existed in Nicosia and Famagusta.

Society and culture
Cypriot society in the Lusignan period was multi-ethnic, with Orthodox Greek Cypriots making up the majority of the population Greeks constituted the majority of the population in the rural areas, where they were either serfs (paroikoi) or free tenants (francomati). The population increased until the middle of the fourteenth century, but the Black Death in 1347-48 resulted in the loss of one fifth to one third of the population. Repeated outbreaks prevented population recovery into the fifteenth century. In the 14th century it was common for Cypriot nobility to get their education in Constantinople.

The Roman Catholic Latins never exceeded a quarter of the island's population and were concentrated in the cities. Frankish knights and aristocracy mostly lived in Nicosia, whilst Italians were concentrated in Famagusta. The losses suffered by the Crusader States in the 1270s and 1280s and the final Fall of Acre in 1291 triggered an influx of Latin immigrants from the Levant, as Italian, Aragonese and Provençal trading cities relocated their merchants to Cyprus. Maronites, Armenians and Syrians were concentrated in the foothills of Pentadaktylos and coastal plains. There was a system of ethnic discrimination and social stratification in place. However, with the majority of the population being Greeks, the Frankish nobility set up a system that would accommodate a certain degree of Greek autonomy, for instance maintaining Greek ecclesiastical courts open to the consultation of "wise and prominent men", thus practically forming secular Greek forms that exercised a form of judicial autonomy. The Greek Cypriot dialect was used as the lingua franca on the island and legal texts were translated into the vernacular, like the Assizes of Jerusalem. This relative autonomy meant that there were no rebellions of ethnic character in the Lusignan period. Whilst Greek historiography has traditionally seen a peasant revolt in 1426-27 as a nationalistic uprising, this was an unsystematic series of riots of pillaging by segments of the Greek peasant population and Spanish mercenaries following the Mamluk invasion, the capture of King Janus and the political vacuum that ensued.

List of monarchs of Cyprus

House of Lusignan
 * Guy (1192–1194)
 * Aimery (1194–1205)
 * Hugh I (1205–1218)
 * Henry I (1218–1253) (the Fat)
 * Hugh II (1253–1267) (Huguet)
 * Hugh III (1267–1284) (the Great)
 * John I (1284–1285)
 * Henry II (1285–1324)
 * Amalric of Tyre (1306–1310), regent
 * Hugh IV (1324–1358)
 * Peter I (1358–1369)
 * Peter II (1369–1382) (the Fat)
 * James I (1382–1398)
 * Janus (1398–1432)
 * John II (1432–1458)
 * Charlotte (1458–1464, and co-ruler 1459–1464 with her husband Louis of Savoy)
 * James II (1460/1464–1473) (the Bastard)
 * James III (1473–1474)
 * Catherine Cornaro (1474–1489)

Pretenders of the Kingdom of Cyprus

 * Thierry of Flanders, who married the "damsel of Cyprus", heiress of Isaac Komnenos, in the winter of 1202/1203, claimed the kingdom, but Aimery refused to surrender it.
 * Eugene Matteo de Armenia (1480's–1523), said by his own progeny to have been an illegitimate son of King James II of Cyprus and if born in the 1480s he was quite a posthumous specimen, alleged to have moved to Sicily then Malta, founder of the family of Baron di Baccari (Tal-Baqqar).
 * Charlotte (d. 1487) and Louis (d. 1482), queen and king-consort, continued as pretenders, Charlotte renounced 1482 in favour of:
 * Charles I of Savoy (1482–1490), legitimate great-grandson of Janus of Cyprus, son of a first cousin of Charlotte, second cousin of James III, nephew of Louis
 * Charles II of Savoy (1490–1496)
 * Yolande Louise of Savoy (1496–1499) and Philibert II of Savoy (d. 1504)
 * Philip II of Savoy (1496–1497), father of Philibert II, great-uncle of Charles II and of Yolande Louise, first cousin of Charlotte, maternal grandson of Janus of Cyprus.
 * and several others. The rights diverted de jure, but were claimed by the male line. See further under Cypriot claimants under Kings of Jerusalem. By 1476, the various claims were so diverse and weak that various monarchs sought former Cypriot queens to cede them their rights. Even the Republic of Venice briefly entertained the idea of setting up Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, the brother-in-law of England's King Edward IV (who was secretly negotiating a marriage to the Scottish princess Cecilia on Anthony's behalf), as a claimant by purchasing the rights of former Cypriot queens Charlotte and Catarina Cornaro. A convention in Venice of 1476 declared "Anthony Arnite" heir to the combined kingdom of Jerusalem-Cyprus but this came to nought when Anthony died before even his marriage to the sister of James Stewart, King of Scots could be celebrated, and the former Cypriot queens ceded their rights elsewhere: Charlotte to the Italian house of Savoy and Catarina Cornaro to the Most Serene Republic of Venice which asserted its claim to the kingdom as part of the republic, without even a candidate for king.

Titles of the Kings of Cyprus

 * King of Cyprus
 * King of Jerusalem
 * Lord of the Mountains

title: Kingdom of Cyprus


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List of human positions

Human positions refer to the different physical configurations that the human body can take. There are several synonyms that refer to human positioning, often used interchangeably, but having specific nuances of meaning.
 * Position is a general term for a configuration of the human body.
 * Posture means an intentionally or habitually assumed position.
 * Pose implies an artistic, aesthetic, athletic, or spiritual intention of the position.
 * Attitude refers to postures assumed for purpose of imitation, intentional or not, as well as in some standard collocations in reference to some distinguished types of posture: "Freud never assumed a fencer's attitude, yet almost all took him for a swordsman."
 * Bearing refers to the manner of the posture, as well as of gestures and other aspects of the conduct taking place.

Basic positions
While not moving, a human is usually in one of the following basic positions:

All-fours
This is the static form of crawling which is a form of locomotion instinctive in very young children. It was a commonly used childbirth position in both Western and non-Western cultures, in which context it is known as the Gaskin Maneuver. This position is sometimes viewed as sexually explicit due to its association with sexual initiation or availability.

Kneeling
Kneeling is a basic human position where one or both knees touch the ground. It is used as a resting position, during childbirth and as an expression of reverence and submission. While kneeling, the angle between the legs can vary from zero to widely splayed out, flexibility permitting. It is common to kneel with one leg and squat with the other leg.

While kneeling, the thighs and upper body can be at various angles in particular:
 * Vertical kneel: where both the thighs and upper body are vertical – also known as "standing on one's knees"
 * Sitting kneel: where the thighs are near horizontal and the buttocks sit back on the heels with the upper body vertical - for example as in Seiza, Virasana, and Vajrasana (yoga)
 * Taking a knee: where the upper body is vertical, one knee is touching the ground while the foot of the other leg is placed on the ground in front of the body

Lying
When in lying position, the body may assume a great variety of shapes and positions. The following are the basic recognized positions:
 * Supine position: lying on the back with the face up
 * Prone position: lying on the chest with the face down ("lying down" or "going prone")
 * Lying on either side, with the body straight or bent/curled forward or backward
 * Fetal position: is lying or sitting curled, with limbs close to the torso and the head close to the knees

Sitting
Sitting requires the buttocks resting on a more or less horizontal structure, such as a chair or the ground. Special ways of sitting are with the legs horizontal, and in an inclined seat. While on a chair the shins are usually vertical, on the ground the shins may be crossed in the lotus position or be placed horizontally under the thigh in a seiza.

Squatting or crouching
Squatting is a posture where the weight of the body is on the feet (as with standing) but the knees and hips are bent. In contrast, sitting, involves taking the weight of the body, at least in part, on the buttocks against the ground or a horizontal object such as a chair seat. The angle between the legs when squatting can vary from zero to widely splayed out, flexibility permitting. Squatting may be either:
 * full – known as full squat, deep squat, grok squat, Asian squat, third world squat, (sitting) on one's haunches, (sitting) on one's hunkers, or hunkering (down)
 * partial – known as partial, standing, half, semi, parallel, shallow, intermediate, incomplete, or monkey squat

Crouching is usually considered to be synonymous with full squatting. It is common to squat with one leg and kneel with the other leg. One or both heels may be up when squatting. Young children often instinctively squat. Among Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Eastern European adults, squatting often takes the place of sitting or standing.

Standing
Although quiet standing appears to be static, modern instrumentation shows it to be a process of rocking from the ankle in the sagittal plane. The sway of quiet standing is often likened to the motion of an inverted pendulum. There are many mechanisms in the body that are suggested to control this movement, e.g. a spring action in muscles, higher control from the nervous system or core muscles.

Although the posture is not dangerous in itself, there are pathologies associated with prolonged intervals of unrelieved standing. One short-term condition is orthostatic hypotension, and long-term conditions are sore feet, stiff legs, and low back pain.

Some variations of standing are:
 * Standing with arms akimbo, that is with hands on hips, elbows pointing outward
 * Standing with folded arms
 * Standing contrapposto, with most of the weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs in the axial plane
 * Standing at attention, upright with an assertive and correct posture: "chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in", arms at the side, heels together, toes apart

Asanas
Certain asanas postures were originally intended primarily to restore and maintain a practitioner's well-being, to improve the body's flexibility and vitality, and to promote the ability to remain in seated meditation for extended periods.

Atypical positions
Atypical positions are common to break dancing, gymnastics, and yoga, and may include:
 * standing on one leg
 * handstand
 * head stand
 * spreadeagle
 * crab position

The human body can be suspended in various stable positions, where the support is above the center of gravity. The positioning may be voluntary or involuntary.

Childbirth positions
In addition to the lithotomy position still commonly used by many obstetricians, childbirth positions that are successfully used by midwives and traditional birth-attendants the world over include squatting, standing, kneeling, and on all fours, often in a sequence.

Dance positions

Dance position is a position of a dancer or a mutual position of a dance couple assumed during a dance. Describing and mastering proper dance positions is an important part of dance technique.

Eating positions
Eating positions vary in different regions of the world, as culture strongly influences the way people eat their meals. For example, in most of the Middle Eastern countries, eating while sitting on the floor is most common, and it is believed to be healthier than eating while sitting at a table.

Eating in a reclining position was favored by the Ancient Greeks at a celebration they called a symposium, and this custom was adopted by the Ancient Romans. Ancient Hebrews also adopted this posture for traditional celebrations of a Passover Seder, to symbolize freedom. The biblical prophet Amos associates "those who recline at banquets" with the false sense of security among the Israelites whom he is warning to repent.

Heat escape lessening position
The heat escape lessening position (HELP) is a way to position oneself to reduce heat loss in cold water. It is taught as part of the curriculum in Australia, North America, and Ireland for lifeguard and boating safety training. It essentially involves positioning one's knees together and hugging them close to the chest using one's arms.

Medical positions

The following positions are specifically used in medicine: • Anatomical position

• Bozeman's position

• Decubitus position

• Fowler's position

• High Fowler's position

• Knee-chest position

• Knee-elbow position

• Lateral position

• Lithotomy position

• Mayer position

• Prone position

• Rose's position

• Semi-Fowler position

• Sims' position

• Supine position

• Tripod position

• Trendelenburg position

• Verticosubmental position

• Waters' position

Recovery position
The recovery position or coma position refers to one of a series of variations on a lateral recumbent or three-quarters prone position of the body, into which an unconscious but breathing casualty can be placed as part of first aid treatment.

Resting positions
A large number of resting positions are possible, based on variations of sitting, squatting, kneeling or lying.

Riding positions
A "straddle" or "astride" position is usually adopted when riding a horse, donkey, or other beast of burden, with or without the aid of a saddle. The position is also used for sitting on analogous vehicles, such as bicycles, motorcycles, or unicycles, and on furniture, such as certain types of seating, and bidets. The posture is also used on some types of specialized workbenches (such as a shaving horse). By definition, an essential feature is having one leg on each side of whatever is being straddled. The related sidesaddle position allows riding without straddling, but is somewhat less secure against accidental dismounting or falling.

The straddle posture is often intermediate between standing and sitting positions, allowing body weight to be supported securely, while also affording a high degree of upper body mobility and dynamic balance during vigorous or extended motions.

Sex positions
Sex positions are positions which people may adopt during or for the purpose of sexual intercourse or other sexual activities. Sexual acts are generally described by the positions the participants adopt in order to perform those acts.

Shooting positions

 * Kneeling position
 * Prone position
 * Standing position
 * Sitting
 * Squatting

Sleeping positions
The sleeping position is the body configuration assumed by a person during or prior to sleeping. Six basic sleeping positions have been identified:
 * Fetus (41%) – curling up in a fetal position. This was the most common position, and is especially popular with women.
 * Log (15%) – lying on one's side with the arms down the side.
 * Yearner (13%) – sleeping on one's side with the arms in front.
 * Soldier (8%) – on one's back with the arms pinned to the sides.
 * Freefall (7%) – on one's front with the arms around the pillow and the head tilted to one side.
 * Starfish (5%) – on one's back with the arms around the pillow.

Stress positions
Stress positions place the human body in such a way that a great amount of weight is placed on just one or two muscles and joints. Forcing prisoners to adopt such positions is a method of ill-treatment used for extracting information or as a punishment, possibly amounting to torture. Such positions also are sometimes used as a punishment for children.

Submissive positions
Submissive positions are often ceremonial and dictated by culture. They may be performed as a mutual sign of respect between equals or as a sign of submission to a higher-ranking individual or to a ceremonial object.
 * Bowing is the lowering of the head and torso towards the person or object of reverence, often briefly. The extent of a bow ranges from a simple head nod to a 90–degree bending at the waist. Though less common in Western cultures, it remains an important sign of respect in many Eastern cultures, and is also used in the ceremonies of various religions.
 * In bowing and scraping, the right hand is placed across the abdomen while the right leg is drawn or "scraped" back during a bow.
 * In Western cultures, it is often considered proper for women to perform a curtsey by bending the knees instead of a bow.
 * Genuflection (or genuflexion) is bending at least one knee to the ground, was from early times a gesture of deep respect for a superior.
 * Kneeling is associated with reverence, submission and obeisance.
 * Kowtowing is the act of deep respect shown by kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground.
 * Prostration is the placement of the body in a reverentially or submissively prone position.

title: List of human positions


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Portal:Current events/July 2003

July 2003 was the seventh month of that common year. The month, which began on a Tuesday, ended on a Thursday after 31 days.

Portal:Current events
This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from July 2003.

title: Portal:Current events/July 2003


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Yomiuri Shimbun

The Yomiuri Shimbun (讀賣新聞/読売新聞) is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are The Asahi Shimbun, the Chunichi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. It is headquartered in Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo.''

It is a newspaper that represents Tokyo and generally has a conservative orientation. It is one of Japan's leading newspapers, along with the Osaka-based liberal (Third Way) Asahi Shimbun and the Nagoya-based social democratic Chunichi Shimbun.

It is published by regional bureaus, all of them subsidiaries of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Japan's largest media conglomerate by revenue and the second largest media conglomerate by size behind Sony, which is privately held by law and wholly owned by present and former employees and members of the Matsutarō Shōriki family. The Holdings has been part-owned by the family since Matsutarō Shōriki's purchase of the newspaper in 1924 (currently owning a total of 45.26% stock); despite its control, the family is not involved in its executive operations.

Founded in 1874, the Yomiuri Shimbun is credited with having the largest newspaper circulation in the world as of 2019, having a morning circulation of 7.0 million as of June 2021. The paper is printed twice a day and in several different local editions.

The Yomiuri Shimbun established the Yomiuri Prize in 1949. Its winners have included Yukio Mishima and Haruki Murakami.

History
The Yomiuri was launched in 1874 by the Nisshusha newspaper company as a small daily newspaper. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s the paper came to be known as a literary arts publication with its regular inclusion of work by writers such as Ozaki Kōyō.

In 1924, Shoriki Matsutaro took over management of the company. His innovations included improved news coverage, a full-page radio program guide, and the establishment of Japan's first professional baseball team, now known as the Yomiuri Giants. The emphasis of the paper shifted to broad news coverage aimed at readers in the Tokyo area. By 1941 it had the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the Tokyo area. In 1942, under wartime conditions, it merged with the Hochi Shimbun and became known as the Yomiuri-Hochi.

The Yomiuri was the center of a labor scandal in 1945 and 1946. In October 1945, a post-war "democratization group" called for the removal of Shoriki Matsutaro, who had supported Imperial Japan's policies during World War II. When Shoriki responded by firing five of the leading members of this group, the writers and editors launched the first "production control" strike on 27 October 1945. This method of striking became an important union tactic in the coal, railroad, and other industries during the postwar period. Shoriki Matsutaro was arrested in December 1945 as a Class-A war criminal and sent to Sugamo Prison. The Yomiuri's employees continued to produce the paper without heeding executive orders until a police raid on June 21, 1946. The charges against Shoriki were dropped and he was released in 1948. According to research by Professor Tetsuo Arima of Waseda University on declassified documents stored at NARA, he agreed to work with the CIA as an informant.

In February 2009, the Yomiuri entered into a tie-up with The Wall Street Journal for editing, printing and distribution. Since March 2009 the major news headlines of the Journal's Asian edition have been summarized in Japanese in the evening edition of the Yomiuri.

The Yomiuri features an advice column, Jinsei Annai.

The Yomiuri has a history of promoting nuclear power in Japan. In May 2011, when Naoto Kan, then Prime Minister of Japan, asked the Chubu Electric Power Company to shut down several of its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plants due to safety concerns, the Yomiuri called the request "abrupt" and a difficult situation for Chubu Electric's shareholders. It wrote that Kan "should seriously reflect on the way he made his request." It then followed up with an article wondering how dangerous Hamaoka really was and called Kan's request "a political judgment that went beyond technological worthiness." The next day damage to the pipes inside the condenser was discovered at one of the plants following a leak of seawater into the reactor.

In 2012, the paper reported that Nobutaka Tsutsui, the Minister for Agriculture, had divulged secret information to a Chinese enterprise. Tsutsui sued the Yomiuri Shimbun for libel and was awarded 3.3 million yen in damages in 2015, on the basis that the truth of the allegations could not be confirmed.

In November 2014, the newspaper apologized after using the phrase "sex slave" to refer to comfort women, following its criticism of the Asahi Shimbun's coverage of Japan's World War II comfort women system.

The Yomiuri newspaper said in an editorial in 2011 "No written material supporting the claim that government and military authorities were involved in the forcible and systematic recruitment of comfort women has been discovered", and that it regarded the Asian Women's Fund, set up to compensate for wartime abuses, as a failure based on a misunderstanding of history. The New York Times reported on similar statements previously, writing that "The nation's (Japan's) largest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, applauded the revisions" regarding removing the word "forcibly" from referring to laborers brought to Japan in the pre-war period and revising the comfort women controversy. Yomiuri editorials have also opposed the DPJ government and denounced denuclearization as "not a viable option".

Other publications and ventures
Yomiuri also publishes The Japan News (formerly called The Daily Yomiuri), one of Japan's largest English-language newspapers. It publishes the daily Hochi Shimbun, a sport-specific daily newspaper, as well as weekly and monthly magazines and books.

Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings owns the Chuokoron-Shinsha publishing company, which it acquired in 1999, and the Nippon Television network. It is a member of the Asia News Network. The paper is known as the de facto financial patron of the baseball team Yomiuri Giants. They also sponsor the Japan Fantasy Novel Award annually. It has been a sponsor of the FIFA Club World Cup every time it has been held in Japan since 2006.

From 1949 through 1963, the newspaper sponsored the Yomiuri Indépendant Exhibition, an unjuried annual art exhibition which gave rise to avant-garde and contemporary rising artists.

Digital resources
In November 1999, the Yomiuri Shimbun released a CD-ROM titled "The Yomiuri Shimbun in the Meiji Era," which provided searchable archives of news articles and images from the period that have been digitalized from microfilm. This was the first time a newspaper made it possible to search digitalized images of newspaper pictures and articles as they appeared in print.

Subsequent CD-ROMs, "The Taishō Era", "The pre-war Showa Era I", and "The pre-war Showa era II" were completed eight years after the project was first conceived. "Postwar Recovery", the first part of a postwar Shōwa Era series that includes newspaper stories and images until 1960, is on the way.

The system of indexing each newspaper article and image makes the archives easier to search, and the CD-ROMs have been well received by users as a result. This digital resource is available in most major academic libraries in the United States.

Locations

 * Tokyo Head Office
 * 1-7-1, Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan

 * Osaka Head Office
 * 5-9, Nozakicho, Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan

 * West Japan Head Office
 * 1-16-5, Akasaka, Chūō-ku, Fukuoka, Japan

Yomiuri Group
The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings (株式会社読売新聞グループ本社) conglomerate comprises many entities, including:
 * Yomiuri Giants
 * Nippon TV
 * Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation
 * Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc.
 * Yomiuriland, an amusement park
 * Yomiuri Advertising Agency (also known as "Yomiko", later sold to Hakuhodo)

In popular culture

 * Jake Adelstein's 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice is based on his time as the first American crime reporter at Yomiuri Shimbun, and was also the basis for a series of the same name airing on HBO Max in 2022.

title: Yomiuri Shimbun


text:
Talk:Tensor (intrinsic definition)

Maintainability
I am now trying to make this page more easily maintainable, by replacing Wiki markup + Unicode with TeX markup for the math stuff. This makes this page visible in many more browsers, and should make the page more editable for experts; of which I am not one. Could any mathematicians here proof-read this article, please?

Can I protest (a) about calling things in mathematics 'formalisms' (which is too much like Serge Lang for me) - one might as well say 'unmotivated stuff'; and (b) calling things 'modern' - unlike calling things classical, which is fair enough?

Charles Matthews 09:11, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Charles, what name would be suitable?

 * Tensor (differential geometry treatment) ?
 * Tensor (component-free treatment) ?
 * something else?

-- The Anome 22:44, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Tensor (abstract algebra) is good. The old argument (six decades ago now) was: don't say modern algebra (perishable), say abstract algebra. In fact there is an argument now to go further to tensor (category theory) (as well, not instead of) for monoidal categories.

Charles Matthews 17:55, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Tensor (differential geometry) is better, except that even the component-treatment is differential geometry... I don't quite think abstract algebra covers tensor bundles, differential manifolds, connections, sections, etc... Phys 17:25, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Connections? Keep on topic, please. This is the old argument (for tensors here) that you have to introduce tensor fields at the same time as tensors. Why? There is a page for tensor fields.

Charles Matthews 18:50, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I've looked around a bit - not hard to find ten 'tensor' pages. I think this tells me something a little more positive, namely that this isn't really a name-space problem any more. It's more a question of licking the hypertext into shape. I've not moved any pages up to now, and don't intend to start.

Charles Matthews 20:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wow, this page has mobilized! What is intrinsic definition supposed to mean? aren't tensors in general intrinsic definitions of a space? isn't that what riemannian geometry (classical tensors) is known for: intrinsic definition of curvature? how else would one use the phrase "intrinsic definition" other than refering to the topology of the space or curve? does one mean by this "component-free"? if so, why not just say "component-free" instead of the ambiguous, mysterious, and confusing (because of its allusion to the intrinisic definition of curvature in riemannian geometry (classical tensors)) "intrinsic definition".

regarding "abstract algebra": (and someone mentioned differential geometry) there was discusion earlier in the Talk:Tensor page regarding the topical arrangement of the mathematics page, and where in that tensors should go (why they are on top), and it was concluded that they belong in both the abstract algebra section (for the modern treatment) and the differential geometry section (for the classical treatment), which makes a lot of sense. maybe "abstract algebra approach" would be more fitting, informative, and helpfull, seeing that the approach is based on abstract algebra, comes from the perspective of abstract algebra, and one needs to know abstract algebra in order to learn it.

--Kevin Baas Still suggesting:

 * Tensor (absract algebra treatment)

-- Kevin Baas 14:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This article needs re-hauling. The title is inadequate and suggests confusion with the notion of tensor fields in differential geometry. The header, as others have above suggested, ought to be: "Tensors (algebraic treatment)". While listing the correct properties of a tensor space, the standard explicit construction (in terms of a quotient of some free module) is not provided. Tensor products from the viewpoint of category theory (as covariant functors) should at least be briefly hinted at.

--Anon 14 July 2006.

(First talk post for me; experienced posters please correct me re: posting conventions.) Suggestion: Display a commutative diagram of VxW, Vx_FW, Q, Q', and X in the definition of the tensor product. I find commutative diagrams to be helpful, for both algebra-minded and non-algebra-minded readers. 24.155.243.76 21:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC), Nooj.

discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/related articles
This article is part of a series of closely related articles for which I would like to clarify the interrelations. Please contribute your ideas at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/related articles. --MarSch 14:11, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article seems to completely miss the point of the algebraic approach to tensors. A tensor is simply a multi-linear map. I think this article presents this idea in a manner that is more complicated than it needs to be.

-- Anon 2 Jan 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.9.185 (talk) 03:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Alternate notation
In the section "Alternate notation", what do the wavy approximate equal signs mean? Shouldn't they just be equal signs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.103.54.116 (talk) 17:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

 * They aren't approximation signs but mean "is naturally isomorphic to", as the article states, hence the link to natural isomorphism. Dependent Variable (talk) 20:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Tensor products
Is this correct, and if so, what does it mean?

 * "An element of this tensor product is referred to as a tensor (but this is not the notion of tensor discussed in this article)"?

The link to the "Tensor product of vector spaces" section of Tensor product" leads me to think that perhaps whoever made the link misread it as "This tensor product (i.e. the tensor product of vector spaces) is referred to as a tensor" or that, at the time when the link was made, the sentence actually said something equivalent to "This tensor product is referred to as a tensor", as opposed to "An element of this tensor product ..." As it stands - as far as I can see - the sentence refers to exactly the notion of tensor that the rest of the article goes on to define: "A tensor on the vector space V is then defined to be an element of (i.e., a vector in) a vector space of the form ..." Dependent Variable (talk) 20:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Rank: Disambiguation
I suggest that Tensor Rank direct to a disambiguation page, and not directly to the subsection, so that inline disambiguation is not necessary and conflicting terminology can be accounted for by an explicitly defining link. Either that, or the definition of the term used on Wikipedia should be standardized. LokiClock (talk) 13:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Contravariance and covariance
Since this is the second time I've needed to revert the wording of "contravariant" and "covariant" in the definition, I thought I'd include an explanation of my edit here. I think the confusion comes from the fact that one way of defining a type (m,n) tensor T is as the multilinear map
 * $$ \begin{matrix} T: & \underbrace{ V^* \times\dots\times V^*} & \times & \underbrace{ V \times\dots\times V} &\rightarrow  \mathbf{R}.

\\ & \text{m copies}& &\text{n copies} & & \end{matrix}$$

However, the definition used in this article is, instead, that a type (m,n) tensor is an element of the tensor product of vector spaces
 * $$ \begin{matrix} T\in & \underbrace{V \otimes\dots\otimes V} & \otimes & \underbrace{V^* \otimes\dots\otimes V^*}.

\\ & \text{m copies}& &\text{n copies} \end{matrix}$$

In either case, though, a type (m,n) tensor is said to be contravariant of order m (denoted with upper indices) and covariant of order n (denoted with lower indices). I hope that clarifies the naming convention.

- Rundquist (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:53, 14 July 2011 (UTC).

 * This confusion should not occur if wording is corrected: it is the components of the tensor that are correctly called contravariant and covariant in the given number of indices, not the tensor as a whole. I see the wording is still poor in this respect. — Quondum☏ 21:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Components may exist without coordinate systems
A local section of the Frame bundle allows for components of a tensor without reference to a coordinate systems, and there are descriptions of General relativity that are written on that basis. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 23:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

 * The section Tensor (intrinsic definition) does create the incorrect impression that tensor components, and indeed a basis, might only be defined in the case of tangent spaces and then only in relation to coordinates of a smooth manifolds. Such a basis is a holonomic basis, but there are non-holonomic bases even for this case.  In the case of a fibre bundle over a manifold, a relating a basis to the manifold coordinates may be impossible.  This section deals with bases, components and transforms of components, which belongs in the article Tensor, and not here, anyway.  I'm removing the entire section as not belonging here.  —Quondum 04:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Definition via multilinear functions?
Shouldn't there be a section on definitions via multilinear functions, with a wikilink to Tensor from both sections? Note that the two definitions are equivalent in the finite dimensional case, or when continuity is not relevant. There is a discussion of such multilinear functions in Tensor (intrinsic definition), although some details are different for the infinite dimensional case. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Intrinsic definition of tangent and cotangent bundles?
Are the coordinate-free definitions for the Tangent space and Cotangent space within scope of this article? If not, should there at least be wikilinks? The relevant definitions that I'm familiar with are

 * 1) Differential operators at x
 * 2) Equivalence classes of curves through x
 * 3) germs of functions at x
 * 4) Duals Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

 * IMO (and I might be alone on this), tensors fields on manifolds are not directly within the scope of this article, but since some fields essentially exclusively use tensors on the tangent vector space of a manifold, generally with an associated differential structure, it is sensible to make reference to this concept. A coordinate-free formulation of differential geometry does have merit, though ideally not in this article.  The coordinate-free approach to tensor algebra alone should be rich enough for this article.  —Quondum 03:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Lede - needs edit
The lede seems to me to have multiple problems, mostly about the use of language rather than the (non-existent) mathematics. Here is what I think are problems: "In mathematics, the modern component-free approach to the theory of a tensor views a tensor as an abstract object, expressing some definite type of multi-linear concept." Wow. Let me diagram the main clause: [the] approach→views→tensor. Where is ANY explanation of what is intrinsic about this view? Is "the theory of a tensor" correct? or should it be "the (intrinsic) theory of tensors"? Does "definite type..of concept" have ANY meaning? "Multi-linear concept"??! I think this entire sentence is vague to the point of meaninglessness. I challenge anyone to point out a tensor which is NOT an abstract object. This statement fails utterly in distinguishing the component-free approach from more traditional ones. Is it necessary to explicitly state that this is "in mathematics"? What does that mean? Are other disciplines prohibited from using it? While it is a mathematical theory, stating that it is "in" mathematics is problematical, I think. If someone knows what a "multilinear concept" is, they should let us know.

"Their well-known properties can be derived from their definitions, as linear maps or more generally; and the rules for manipulations of tensors arise as an extension of linear algebra to multilinear algebra." Wow, again. Their "definitions"? What definitions is this referring to? Shouldn't there be a clear explanation of why and how there is more than one definition for these objects BEFORE their properties are discussed? Which "mathematical objects" have properties that are NOT derived from their definitions? Why was this (tautology) added? It sheds NO light. Does this mean that their not well-know properties can't be derived from their definitions?? Who wrote this?! The rules "arise from" or is it "can be derived from" ?? So, given a mathematical object (yet to be defined), rules arise for them as linear algebra is extended to multi-linear algebra? What?! They are linear maps? (I thought they are multilinear maps!) What does "as linear maps or more generally" MEAN?!? To me, it means "A or not-A", and is (again) without meaning.

"In differential geometry an intrinsic geometric statement may be described by a tensor field on a manifold, and then doesn't need to make reference to coordinates at all." How does a description of a statement change the statement? If I understand this correctly, it states that a intrinsic geometric statement (which is coordinate free by definition) is somehow able to be described using tensors and there-by making it coordinate-free. What??!!

"The same is true in general relativity, of tensor fields describing a physical property." I submit that since whatever the author is talking about is obfuscated, saying that "the same is true" simply adds obfuscation on top of obfuscation.

"The component-free approach is also used heavily in abstract algebra and homological algebra, where tensors arise naturally." But previously the claim was made that they arose via extending linear algebra to multilinear algebra. Of course, they arise in MANY contexts, but scattering all this around leaves me with no more understanding (after I finished reading the lede) than before I started.

Why not say that this approach to the theory of tensors starts by considering them as mathematical, specifically geometric and algebraic, objects with properties based on a coordinate-free, intrinsic, definition. ? (And then move on from there.) The lede should do much better in answering "what, why and how?", imho.Abitslow (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Added statement on rank
The statement "The rank of a non-zero order 2 or higher tensor is less than or equal to the product of all but the longest of the lengths of the vectors in (a sum of products of) which the tensor can be expressed." was added in this edit. This seems confusingly stated. Is this saying that if one takes any of the products in the sum, removes the vector of the space of highest dimension, and then multiplies the dimensions of the remaining vector spaces, one gets an upper limit on the rank? Why then restrict it to rank 2 or higher, since the trivial case of the rank of a vector is covered too (in the sense of an empty product)? Why also mention "non-zero", since the upper limit applies in that case too? —Quondum 15:55, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no idea about the truth value of the statement, but if true, then it is too complicated to be expressed in words. Equation needed. YohanN7 (talk) 14:17, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In the context of this article, which deals only with a finite-dimensional vector space and its dual, I think that it is saying that an upper limit on the rank is nk–1, where n = dim V and k is the order of the tensor. I'd be inclined to trim it to that.  Having a reference would be good.  It seems to be valid except for k = 0, where I expect the upper limit to be 1 rather than 1/n.  —Quondum 16:56, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Last isomorphism in Universal property section
You can't just throw in that last isomorphism in the Universal property section with no context, flipping the V to the other side of the semicolon, sending us all to StackExchange for an explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.127.192.166 (talk) 00:33, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Shortdesc needed
This article could use a shortdesc. Thatsme314 (talk) 13:11, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I have created the short description, "Coordinate-free definition of a tensor", after reading the comments, which suggest that "intrinsic" means "coordinate free", by @Kevin Baas and @Abitslow. Please let me know if this description is flawed in any way, as I am new to tensors. Thatsme314 (talk) 20:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The tensors of order zero are just the scalars (elements of the field F)
The article says, "The tensors of order zero are just the scalars (elements of the field F)". Why is that so? Thatsme314 (talk) 16:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

 * The definition of tensor product requires separate statements for $$n=0$$ and $$n\ne0$$; we define the tensor product of no vector spaces to be the base field, F. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1491787/0th-tensor-power-v-otimes-0-bbb-f-definition-or-mathematical-con Thatsme314 (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Equivalence of the two intrinsic definitions
The article claims equivalence of the two intrinsic definitions: $$\underbrace{ V\otimes \dots \otimes V}_{m} \otimes \underbrace{ V^*\otimes \dots \otimes V^*}_{n}\cong L^{m+n}(\underbrace{V^*, \ldots,V^*}_m,\underbrace{V,\ldots,V}_n; F).$$

However, this result may not hold when $$\dim V$$ is infinite, for example, when $$m=0$$ and $$n=1$$. Thatsme314 (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Tensor (intrinsic definition)