The Dream of the “Talented Man”: Dream Allusions in Qing Poet Li E’s (1692-1752) Youxian Poetry

In the Chinese poetic genre of youxian (roaming as a transcendent) which excels at fantasizing the other world, writers strive to demonstrate their erudition by refashioning the existing materials from the treasure-trove of Chinese literary and religious texts. By focusing on the case of Li E (1692–1752), a leading Qing poet who wrote as many as three hundred youxian poems, this article explores how dream allusions help personalize the poet’s self-expression in such a conventional genre. It argues that despite the intricate and often obscure content of his youxian poems, studying Li’s use of dream allusions can sharpen our understanding of his poems, especially his literary constructions of an extraordinarily talented man.