Li Ye

Li Ye (; died 784), also known by her courtesy name Li Jilan , was a Chinese musician, nun, and poet during the Tang dynasty. She was known for her poetic talent as well as her beauty. In the tumultuous years of the late Tang, she was accused of treason for poems denigrating the imperial house of Tang that the rebel leader Zhu Ci forced her to write. She was condemned to death and executed in 784.

Life Li Ye was born in Wuxing, in present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. and her writing was praised by her contemporaries.

Legacy The Qing dynasty anthology Complete Tang Poems, together with its supplements, preserves 18 of Li Ye's poems. Her poetry was praised by the editors of the Qing-era Complete Library of the Four Treasuries:Li Ye excelled at pentasyllabic shi poetry ... If her poems were mixed with the corpus of the Ten Talented Poets of the dali reign period, no one would be able to tell the difference. Her style is much better than that of Xue Tao; therefore her work should not be abandoned merely because of the small number of her extant poems.

Yu Jiaxi, a modern critic, wrote about Li condemning her execution:During Zhu's revolt, not even the emperor himself could guard his empire but had to abandon his subjects and consorts. Li Ye was even more powerless, criticizing the Tang simply because she was hectored by the despotic rebels. Emperor Dezong made no allowance for the difficulty she found herself in and had her executed.