Su Shi, generally considered to be the greatest literary figure of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1126), was not so much scholarly and profound in his interest in Buddhism and Taoism as he was creative and wide-ranging. This study is primarily concerned with tracing some of the aesthetic and metaphysical links between the style, language, ideas and imagery of Su Shi's poetry and Buddhism and Taoism, and showing how these links add a dimension and complexity to Su Shi's poetry that is not always fully acknowledged.

The first chapter of the study gives a brief overview of Buddhism and Taoism during the Northern Song, and their place in the intellectual and artistic milieu in which Su Shi lived and wrote.

Chapter Two is a biography of Su Shi which focuses primarily on the development of his interest in Buddhism and Taoism: family influences, Buddhist and Taoist friends and teachers, and Buddhist and Taoist ideas, texts and works of art that served as inspiration and confirmation for his own poetry.

The second part of this study explores in more detail three different aspects of Su Shi's interest in Buddhism and Taoism as reflected in his poetry: Buddhist and Taoist art and aesthetics; the paradox of language; and metaphysical concepts of time and space.

Chapter Three shows how Buddhist and Taoist-related paintings, sculpture and aesthetics provided dramatic and linguistic material as well as philosophical ideas for Su's poetry.

Chapter Four is a discussion of the perennial tension between the religious experience which transcends language and the poetic experience which is embodied in language, and how this tension is expressed and developed in Su Shi's poetry.

Chapter Five explores the concepts of time and space as expressed in both the language and form of Su Shi's poetry, and how they can be linked with very similar ideas in Buddhist and Taoist metaphysics.

The conclusion draws together these three different aspects in a preliminary reevaluation of the significance of Buddhism and Taoism in the light of Su Shi's overall poetic work.