The Mentaliy of the Literati in Tang Dynasty

The literary men in Tang Dynasty showed great concern for their nation. This reflects the distintice feature of the age, the flourishing early Tang Dynasty which bore an enlightened and democratic political atmosphere. So the literary men were high spirited and took a very active attitude towards life. But in the middle Tang Dynasty, because of the ineffectiveness of the cardinal principles and the decline of the national power, the literary works expressed the literary men's castigations to the corrupted high officials and great sympathy for the ordinary people. In the late Tang Dynasty, the literary works were full of mournful songs to the age, the perfect unity of form and content has produced those everlasting classics in literary history.