King of Plain Poetry – Bai Juyi

In the mid-Tang Dynasty world of poetry new changes in poetic writing took place. There arose a school of poetry, which aimed to mirror the social realities in simple and plain language. It was represented by Bai Juyi and Yuan Chen, or popularly addressed as Yuan-Bai school of poetry. Of this school of poetry Bai Juyi was the most accomplished. 1155815.cn

Bai Juyi (772-846), polite name Letian and poetic name Xiangshanjushi (the Recluse of the Fragrant Mountains), was a native of Xiagui (present-day Weinan County, Shaanxi Province). In his young days he displayed his poetic talent. In his early twenties he brought his poems andessays along to visit Gu Kuang, one of the celebrities of Chang’an. Triggered by the two Chinese characters Juyi (meaning in Chinese to live easily) on his poetic examination paper, Gu Kuang said with a laugh: “The rice in Chang’an is very expensive, so it is not easy to live on here.” But when he came across the lines “Even the prairie fire cannot burn the grasses up, they will rise when the spring wind blows.” In the poem Grass on the Ancient Plain, he let out a cry in surprise: “Now that you are so talented, it is not difficult for you to live on in Chang’an.” In the year 800 (the sixteenth year of Zhenguan) he passed the imperial examination for Jinshi and later started him official career and held the posts of Hanlin Academician (Academician of the Imperial Academy), Jiangzhou Sima (Assistant to the Prefect), Prefects of Hangzhou and Suzhou Prefectures and Xingbu Shilang (Vice Minister of Punishments). In his remaining years he lived permanently in Luoyang.

In literary writing Bai Juyi upheld the principle that “Literary compositions should be written to serve one’s generation, and poems and songs to influence public affairs.” In other words, literary compositions should reflect that truths of the times, the real life and the concern over the hardships of the common people. To realize his own literary principle, he composed fifty New Music Bureau songs and ten songs of Chang’an, which exposed and criticized the social problems and the political evils of his day. 民俗节庆门户网站

Of Bai Juyi’s poetry the most successful, artistic and influential are Song of Everlasting Sorrow and Song of a Pipa Player. Song of Everlasting Sorrow is about the story of Emperor Tang Xuanzong and his favorite concubine Yang Guifei. In the former part of it the beauty-loving Emperor Tang Xuanzong was so enthralled by the bewitching beauty Yang Guifei as to retire from affairs of state. Since Yang Guifei was in his favor, all her brothers and sisters were appointed to the high-ranking positions and enjoyed their fame and wealth. As a result, the An Lushan Rebellion broke out and Yang Guifei was forced to hang herself at the Mawei Slope and Emperor Tang Xuanzong fled to Sichuan. In the latter part Tang Xuanzong had a yearning for Yang Guifei, which as very sentimental and tragic. Worthy of lasting popularity are the descriptions of Tang Xuangzong’s longing for his lost beauty on his return to the former royal palace. The whole poem is elusive and sentimental, musical and appealing.

Song of Everlasting Sorrow and Song of a Pipa Player are the lasting masterpieces, which exhibit an almost perfect unity of narrative technique and lyrical artistry in ancient classical poetry. In Bai Juyi’s lifetime “children can understand and recite Song of Everlasting Sorrow, and even those from the northern tribes can sing Song of a Pipa Player”. In the generations after his death the two poems were time and again rewritten into drama and exerted a far-reaching influence in the history of Chinese literature. 

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