A Study Guide for T'ao Ch'ien's "I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for T'ao Ch'ien's "I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535825313

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information.

I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road

T'ao Ch'ien

C. 417

Introduction

I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road is a poem by the Chinese poet T'ao Ch'ien (also called T'ao Yuan-ming). The exact date of composition is unknown. Scholars believe it was written at some point between 403, when the poet would have been thirty-eight years old, and 417, with the later date being preferred by many. The poem is part of a group of twenty poems collectively called Drinking Wine. T'ao prefaced these poems with a note in which he said that he was living in retirement and had developed a habit of drinking wine in the evenings. After he drank the wine, he composed some verse just to amuse himself. He then asked a friend to write them out so they could both enjoy them.

T'ao is considered one of the greatest Chinese poets, and he is also one of the earliest. I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road is one of his best-known poems. In its quiet reflections on a natural scene and its sense of calm detachment, it represents many common themes of this poet who lived on a farm and enjoyed solitude.

The poem was translated into English at least five times during the twentieth century, beginning with the version by Arthur Waley in his One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems in 1918. Other translators include A. R. Davis, William Acker (under the title I Built My House near Where Others Dwell), James Robert Hightower (I Built My Hut beside a Traveled Road, used in this discussion), and most recently,