Cen Shen was a Chinese poet of Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

. He was born to a bureaucratic family in Nanyang (in today's Henan

Henan

Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...

), but later moved to Jiangling (in today's Hubei

Hubei

' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

). His great-grandfather Cen Wenben, grandfather's brother Cen Changqian and elder uncle Cen Yi were all chancellors. His father Cen Zhi once occupied Jingzhou Cishi. When Cen Shen was 10, his father died, and financial situation of his family descended. After then, Cen was learning with assiduity, reading a lot of scriptures and history books. He moved to Chang'an when he was 20, and obtained jinshi in 744. Seven years later, Cen met Gao Shi

Gao Shi

Gao Shi , was a poet of the Tang Dynasty, and some of whose poems were collected in the popular anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.Born into an impoverished family in Hunan Province, Gao eventually became a secretary in the military, enjoying a successful career.Gao Shi was one of the competitors...

 and Du Fu

Du Fu

Du Fu was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty.Along with Li Bai , he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations...

, and became their friend.

Cen's early poems were always landscape poems.