Return_to_the_Field_(rhapsody)
Return to the Field
Poem written by Zhang Heng
Return to the Field (歸田賦 Gui tian fu) is a literary work written in the Chinese style known as a rhapsody, or fu style: it is by Zhang Heng (AD 78–139), an official, inventor, mathematician, and astronomer of the Han dynasty of China (202 BC–220 AD). Zhang's Return to the Field is a seminal work in the Fields and Gardens poetry genre which helped to sparked centuries of poetic enthusiasm for poems of various forms which share a common theme of nature foremost with human beings and human thought seemingly not in main focus, somewhat similar to the Landscape poetry genre; however, in the case of the Fields and Gardens genre, nature was focused upon in its more domestic manifestation, paying homage to the appearance of nature in gardens, as found in backyards, and cultivated in the countryside. Return to the Field also invokes traditional themes of Classical Chinese poetry involving nature versus society.