Framed within Chinese traditional poetics about allusion, the book focuses on the rhetorical function of allusion in Li Shangyin’s (ca. 812-858) poems. While explicating the allusive process between the alluding and evoked texts, the book formulates an English language taxonomy regarding the practice of allusion in Chinese poetry. The book draws attention to the non-allegorical similarity between the poet’s spiritual solitude and a lovelorn woman’s life in Li’s love poems, shedding light on conventional interpretations of gendered poetic images as allegory for the political...