Li Bai

Li Bai (Chinese: 李白, pinyin: Lǐ Bái, Wade-Giles: Li Pai) (701-762) was a Chinese poet considered the greatest romantic poet of the Tang dynasty. The character 白, pronounced bái in modern Mandarin, once had the alternate pronunciation ''bó'', thus its name was transcribed as & #39;''Li Po'', according to the Wade-Giles system of this obsolete pronunciation.

Acknowledgment

Li Bai

Known as the immortal poet, he is among the most respected in the history of Chinese literature. Currently, approximately nine hundred of his poems are preserved, although the attribution of many of them is uncertain, which means that the count of his works varies depending on the sources consulted. In the West, Li Bai's works became known through very liberal translations of Japanese versions of his poems, made by Ezra Pound, who admired Li Bai for his visual ability and, in fact, considered him the greatest example of visuality. of Japanese literature. In Spanish, the direct versions of his poems by Marcela de Juan are widely recognized.

Li Bai is known for his boundless imagination and Taoist imagery poured into his poetry as well as his fondness for drink. Like Du Fu, Li Bai spent much of his life traveling, which he was able to afford thanks to his relaxed financial situation. It is said that he drowned in the Yangzi River, after falling from his boat while trying to embrace the reflection of the moon, while under the influence of alcohol.

Biography

Li Bai or Li Po, a contemporary of Wang Wei, was self-engendered. His birthplace is uncertain, but one candidate is Suiye in Central Asia (in the vicinity of present-day Tokmak in Kyrgyzstan). When he was just five years old, his family moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuan province. He was influenced by Confucian and Taoist thought, but ultimately his family heritage did not allow him great opportunities within the aristocratic Tang dynasty. Despite expressing his desire to become a civil servant, he failed to take the Chinese civil service exam. Instead, at the age of 25, he took to traveling in China, developing a wild and free personality, quite contrary to the prevailing ideas of a proper Confucian gentleman. This image fascinated aristocrats and common people alike, and Li Bai was finally presented to Emperor Xuan Zong in 742.

He was given a position at the Hanlin Academy, which trained intellectual experts for the imperial court. Li Bai remained for less than two years as a poet in the emperor's service, as he was finally fired for an unknown indiscretion. Consequently he wandered around China for the rest of his life. He met Du Fu in the fall of 744 and met him again the following year. These were the only times they met, but their friendship remained very important to Du Fu (there are a dozen of his poems to or about Li Bai, while there is only one from Li Bai to Du Fu).. At the time of the An Lushan rebellion, he was involved in a proxy revolt against the emperor, although to what extent this was voluntary is not known -Li Bai managed to maintain an ambiguous position by producing poems that did not clearly determined their position towards the rebels. The failure of the rebellion resulted in his second exile in Yelang. He was acquitted before he finished the time of his banishment.

Early Years

In 705, when Li Bai was four years old, his father secretly moved his family to Sichuan, near Chengdu, where the poet spent his childhood. Today there is a monument commemorating this in the city of Zhongba, Jiangyou, Sichuan Province (the area of modern province then known as Shu, after a former independent state that had been annexed by the Sui dynasty and later incorporated into Tang dynasty lands). Young Li spent most of his growing up years in Qinglian (青莲), a city in Chang-ming County, Sichuan, China that now nominally corresponds to Qinglian City (青蓮鎮) in Sichuan.

The young Li read a lot, including such Confucian classics as Classic of Poetry and Classic of History, as well as various astrological and metaphysical materials that Confucians they tended to avoid. Reading the "One Hundred Authors" it was part of the family literary tradition, and he was also able to compose poetry before he was ten years old. The young Li also engaged in other pursuits, such as taming wild birds and fencing. He also engaged in horseback riding, hunting, traveling, and helping the poor or downtrodden with money and weapons. Eventually the young Li seems to have become quite proficient in swordsmanship; as this autobiographical quote from Li himself testifies and also helps to illustrate the wild life he led in the Sichuan of his youth:

"When I was fifteen years old I was fond of swordplay, and with that art I challenged quite a few great men".

Before he was twenty, Li had fought and killed several men, ostensibly for chivalry, in accordance with knight-errant (youxia) tradition.

In 720, he was interviewed by Governor Su Ting, who considered him a genius. Although he expressed a desire to become a civil servant, he never took the civil service exam.

Marriage and Family

Li is known to have been married four times. His first marriage, in 727, at Anlu, Hubei, was to the granddaughter of a former government minister, his wife being from the well-connected Wú (吳) family. Li Bai lived for about ten years in a house owned by his wife's family on Mount Bishan (碧山), in 744 he married a second time in what is now the Liangyuan district of Henan. This marriage was with another poetess, surnamed Zong (宗), with whom he had children and exchanged poems, including many expressions of love for her and her children. His wife Zong was a granddaughter of Zong Chuke (宗楚客, died 710), an important government official during the Tang dynasty and the Wu Zetian interregional period.

On the way to Chang'an

At the age of twenty-five, around 725, Li Bai left Sichuan sailing up the Yangzi River through Dongting Lake to Nanjing, beginning his wandering days. He then returned upriver to Yunmeng in what is now Hubei, where his marriage to the granddaughter of a retired prime minister, Xu Yushi, appears to have been only a brief interlude. During the first year of his trip he met celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to friends in need.

In 730 Li Bai stayed on Zhongnan Mountain near the capital Chang'an (Xi'an) and tried but failed to secure a position. He sailed down the Yellow River, stopping at Luoyang and visiting Taiyuan before returning to his home. In 735 Li Bai was in Shanxi, where he court-martialed against Guo Ziyi, who later, after becoming one of the leading Tang generals, was to return the favor during the An Shi riots. By 740 he had moved to Shandong, where he became a member of the group known as the 'Six Idle Bamboo Stream', an informal group devoted to literature and wine. He wandered around the Zhejiang and Jiangsu area and eventually befriended a famous Taoist priest, Wu Yun. In 742 the Emperor summoned Wu Yun to attend the imperial court, where he gave high praise to Li Bai.

In Chang'an

Wu Yun's praise of Li Bai led Emperor Xuanzong (born Li Longji and also known as Emperor Minghuang) to summon Li to court in Chang'an. Li's personality fascinated aristocrats and common people alike, including another Taoist and poet, He Zhizhang, who bestowed on him the nickname 'Heaven-Exiled Immortal'. Indeed, after an audience In the initial interview in which Li Bai was questioned about his political views, the Emperor was so impressed that he held a grand banquet in his honour. At this banquet, the Emperor was said to show favor to him, even to the point of personally spicing his soup for him.

Emperor Minghuang, sitting on a terrace, observes Li Bai writing poetry while removing boots (illustration of the Qing dynasty).

Emperor Xuanzong hired him as a translator, as Li Bai knew at least one language other than Chinese. Ming Huang eventually gave him a position at the Hanlin Academy, which served to provide the Emperor with academic experience and poetry.

When the emperor ordered Li Bai to the palace, he was often drunk, but he was able to sing his poems at events.

Li Bai wrote several poems about Emperor Yang Guifei's beautiful lover, the favorite royal consort. A story, probably apocryphal, circulates about Li Bai during this period. Once, while drunk, Li Bai had soiled his boots, and Gao Lishi, the most politically powerful eunuch in the palace, was asked to help him remove them, in front of the Emperor. Gao was offended at being asked to perform this menial service, and later managed to persuade Yang Guifei to take offense at Li's poems about her. At the persuasion of Yang Guifei and Gao Lishi, Xuanzong reluctantly but politely, and with large gifts of gold and silver, sent Li Bai away from the royal court. After leaving court, Li Bai formally became a Taoist and settled in Shandong, but continued to wander everywhere for the next ten years and write poems.

Li Bai lived and wrote poems in Bishan (碧山), today Baizhao (白兆山)) in Yandian, Hubei. In the poem Question and Answer Between the Mountains (山中问答 Shanzhong Wenda) he refers to this mountain.

Knowledge of Du Fu

More information: Du Fu

He met Du Fu in the fall of 744, when they shared a single room and various activities together, including travel, hunting, wine, and poetry, establishing a close and lasting friendship. They met again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they saw each other in person, although they continued to maintain a relationship through poetry. This is reflected in the dozen or so poems by Du Fu about Li Bai and the one by Li Bai directed at Du Fu that are extant.

War and exile

Horse riders, North Qi dynasty.

In late 755 riots instigated by the rebel general An Lushan broke out across the country. The emperor eventually fled to Sichuan and abdicated. During the confusion the crown prince declared himself emperor and head of the government. The An Shi riots continued (as they were later called, as they lasted beyond the death of his instigator, continued by Shi Siming and others). Li Bai became a personal adviser to Prince Yong, one of the sons of Ming Huang (Emperor Xuanzong), who was far from at the top of the primogeniture list, but was appointed to share imperial power as a general after Xuanzong abdicated in 756.

However, even before the external enemies of the empire were defeated, the two brothers began to fight each other with their armies. Following the defeat of the Prince's forces by his brother and new emperor in 757, Li Bai escaped, but was later captured, imprisoned in Jiujiang, and sentenced to death. The famous and powerful army general Guo Ziyi and others intervened; Guo Ziyi was the same person whom Li Bai had saved from court martial a couple of decades earlier. His wife, Lady Zong, and others (such as Song Ruosi) wrote petitions for clemency. Following General Guo Ziyi's offer After exchanging his official rank for Li Bai's life, Li Bai's death sentence was commuted to exile and he was consigned to Yelang. Yelang (in what is now Guizhou) was in the remote southwestern corner of the empire and was he considered it to be outside the main sphere of Chinese civilization and culture. Li Bai made his way toward Yelang without much haste, stopping for extended social visits (sometimes for months) and writing poetry along the way, leaving detailed descriptions of his journey for posterity. Notification of an imperial pardon to Li Bai reached him before he approached Yelang. He had only gotten as far as Wushan, when the news of his pardon reached him in 759.

Return and other trips

Monument to Li Bai located west of Ma'anshan.

When Li received news of his imperial pardon, he returned downriver to Jiangxi via Baidicheng in Kuizhou Prefecture, still indulging in the pleasures of food, wine, good company, and writing poetry; the poem of him & # 34; Leaving Baidi in the morning & # 34; it records this stage of his travels, as well as poetically mocking his enemies and detractors, implicit in his inclusion of monkey imagery. Although Li did not cease his wandering lifestyle, he generally limited his travels to Nanjing and the two Anhui cities of Xuancheng and Li Yang (in modern Zhao District). During this time he composed poems about nature and sociopolitical protest. Finally, in 762, Li's kinsman Li Yangbing became a magistrate of Dangtu, and Li Bai went to stay there with him. Meanwhile, Suzong and Xuanzong died within a short period of time, and China had a new emperor. In addition, China engaged in renewed efforts to suppress further military disorders stemming from the Anshi rebellions, and Li volunteered to serve on the staff of Chinese commander Li Guangbi. However, at the age of 61, Li became seriously ill and his health did not allow him to carry out this plan.

Death

Li Bai Memorial Hall in Jiangyou, Sichuan

The new Emperor Daizong made Li Bai the Secretary of the Left Commander's office in 762. However, when the imperial edict reached Dangtu, Anhui, Li Bai was already dead.

Li Bai died in Dangtu, present-day Anhui. Some scholars believe that his death was the result of mercury poisoning after a long history of consuming Taoist longevity elixirs, while others believe that he died from his overindulgence in alcohol.

There is a long and sometimes fanciful tradition regarding his death, from uncertain Chinese sources, that Li Bai drowned after falling from his boat one day while getting very drunk while trying to embrace the reflection of the moon in the sky. Yangtze River, something believed by Herbert Giles. However, the actual cause appears to have been quite natural, though perhaps related to his harsh lifestyle. However, the legend has its place in Chinese culture.

Calligraphy

The only surviving calligraphy in Li Bai's own letter, entitled Shangyangtai, is located at the Palace Museum in Beijing, China.

Li Bai was also a skilled calligrapher, although only one piece of his calligraphy work in his own handwriting exists today. The piece is titled Shàng yáng tái (Climbing the solarium), a scroll 38.1 by 28.5 centimeters long (with the later addition of a title written by Emperor Huizong of Song and a postscript added by Emperor Qianlong himself; the calligraphy is in the Palace Museum in Beijing, China.

Texts and editions

Even Li Bai and Du Fu, the two most famous and most fully edited Tang poets, were affected by the destruction of Tang imperial libraries and the loss of many private collections in periods of turmoil (An rebellions Lushan and Huang Chao). Although many of Li Bai's poems have survived, even more have been lost, and there are difficulties regarding variant texts. One of the first efforts to edit Li Bai's work was that of his relative Li Yangbing, the Dangtu magistrate, with whom he stayed in his later years and to whom he entrusted his manuscripts. However, the most reliable texts are not necessarily found in the first editions. Song dynasty scholars produced several editions of his poetry, but it was not until the Qing dynasty that collections such as Quan Tangshi (Complete Tang Poems) made the most comprehensive studies of surviving texts at that time.

Themes

Critics have focused on Li Bai's strong sense of the continuity of poetic tradition, his glorification of alcoholic beverages (and, indeed, his frank celebration of drunkenness), the fantastical extremes of some of his images, his mastery of formal poetics, rules, and his ability to combine all of this with seemingly effortless virtuosity to produce inimitable poetry. Other themes in Li's poetry are sympathy for common people and antipathy towards unnecessary wars, even when led by the emperor himself.

Poetic tradition

Li Bai had a strong sense of belonging to a poetic tradition. The "genius" of Li Bai, says a recent account, "lies both in his complete mastery of the literary tradition before him and in his ingenuity in adapting it (without breaking it) to discover a uniquely personal language...&# 34; Burton Watson, comparing him to Du Fu, says that Li's poetry "is essentially retrospective, representing more a rebirth and the fulfillment of past promises than a foray into the future". Watson adds, as evidence, that, of all the poems attributed to Li Bai, about one sixth are in the form of yuefu, or, in other words, lyrics reworked from traditional folk ballads. As further evidence, Watson cites the existence of a collection of fifty-nine poems by Li Bai entitled Gu Feng, or In the Old Way, which is, in part, a tribute to the poetry of the Han and Wei dynasties. His admiration for particular poets is also shown through specific allusions, for example to Qu Yuan or Tao Yuanming, and occasionally by name, for example to Du Fu.

A more general appreciation of history is shown by Li Bai in his poems of the huaigu genre, or meditations on the past, where following "one of the perennial themes of Chinese poetry", "the poet contemplates the ruins of past glory".

Chinese rice wine

Enraptured by wine and the moon

John CH Wu observed that "while some may have drunk more wine than Li [Bai], no one has written more poems about wine." Classical Chinese poets were often associated with drinking wine, and Li Bai was part of the Chang'an group of Chinese scholars, his fellow poet Du Fu called the 'Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup'. In general, the Chinese did not consider the moderate use of alcohol to be immoral or unhealthy. James J. Y Liu comments that zui in poetry "does not mean quite the same thing as 'drunk', 'intoxicated' or 'drunk,' but rather to mentally let go of ones normal concerns..." Liu translates zui as 'entraped by wine'. The 'Eight Immortals', however, drank to an unusual degree, although they were still seen as eccentrics. pleasant. Burton Watson concluded that "all Chinese poets celebrate the pleasures of wine, but none so tirelessly and with a note of genuine conviction as Li [Bai]".

One of Li Bai's most famous poems is "Waking up from drunkenness on a spring day" (春日醉起言志). The following version follows the English translation by Arthur Waley.

Waking Up From Drunkenness On A Spring Day (春日醉起言志)

處世若大夢, Life in the world is but a great dream;

胡爲勞其生. I will not spoil it with any work or care.

所以 終日醉, saying I was drunk all day,

頹然臥前楹. Lying helpless on the porch in front of my door.

覺來盼庭前, When I woke up, I blinked at the grass in the garden;

一鳥花間鳴. A lonely bird sang among the flowers.

借問此何時, I wondered, had it been a humid day or a nice one?

春風 語 流鶯. The spring wind whispered to the bird's song.

感之欲嘆息, Moved by his song, I soon began to sigh,

對酒還自傾. And, since there was wine there, I filled my own glass.

浩歌待明月, Singing wildly, I waited for the moon to rise;

曲盡已忘情. By the time my song ended, all my senses were gone.

Fantastic images

An important feature of Li Bai's poetry "is the fantasy and note of wonder and childlike joy that pervades much of it". Burton Watson attributes this to a fascination with Taoist monks who practiced alchemy and austerity in the mountains, with the goal of becoming xian, or immortal beings. There is a strong element of Taoism in his works, both in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone, and "many of his poems deal with mountains, often descriptions of ascents that modulate midway into trekking journeys. the imagination, going from the real mountain to visions of nature deities, immortals and 'jade maidens'; of the Taoist tradition". Watson sees this as another affirmation of Li Bai's affinity with the past and a continuity with the traditions of the Chuci and early fu. Watson finds that this "fantasy element" is behind Li Bai's use of hyperbole and "funny impersonations" of mountains and celestial objects.

Nostalgic

Critic James J.Y. Liu notes that "Chinese poets seem to be perpetually regretting their exile and longing to return home. This may seem sentimental to Western readers, but one must remember the vastness of China, the difficulties of communication, the stark contrast between the highly cultured life in the major cities and the harsh conditions in the country's most remote regions, and the importance of the family. "It's no wonder, he concludes, that nostalgia has become a constant, and therefore conventional, theme in Chinese poetry."

Liu gives as an excellent example Li's poem "Quiet Night Thoughts" (also translated as "Watching the moonlight"), which is often learned by schoolchildren in China. In just 20 words, the poem uses vivid moonlight and icy imagery to convey a sense of nostalgia. This version is based on the English translation by Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie:

Contemplating the moonlight (静夜思)

床前明月光 ， Next to my bed I see a pool of light

疑是地上霜，Is there frost on the ground?

舉頭望明月，I raise my eyes and see the moon,

低頭 思 故鄉。 I lower my face and think of home.

Use of person

Li Bai also wrote several poems from various points of view, including the personality of women. For example, she wrote several poems in the Zi Ye, or "Lady of the Night" style, as well as Han folk ballad style poems.

Technical virtuosity

Li Bai is well known for the technical virtuosity of his poetry and mastery of his verses. In terms of poetic form, 'critics generally agree that Li [Bai] produced no significant innovations. Also in subject matter and content, his poetry stands out less for the new elements he introduces than for the skill with which he illuminates the old ones.

Burton Watson comments on Li Bai's famous poem, which he translates as "Bring the wine": "like much of Li [Bai's] work, it has a grace and dignity without effort that somehow makes it more compelling than the previous treatment of it".

Li Bai's yuefu poems have been called some of the greatest of all time by Ming dynasty scholar and writer Hu Yinglin. Li Bai was especially noted for the gushi form, or 'old style' poems, a type of poetry that allows great freedom in terms of the form and content of the work. An example is his poem & # 34; 蜀道 難 & # 34;, & # 34; Sidewalks in Shu & # 34;. Shu is a poetic term for Sichuan, the destination of refuge that Emperor Xuanzong chose to flee from the approaching forces of the rebel general An Lushan. Watson comments that this poem "employs lines ranging in length from four to eleven characters, the shape of the lines suggesting by their irregularity the jagged peaks and rutted mountain roads of Sichuan depicted in the poem."

Li Bai was also known as a master of jueju, or cut verse. The Ming dynasty poet Li Pan Long said that Li Bai was the greatest jueju master. i> Tang dynasty.

Li Bai was noted for his mastery of lüshi, or "regulated verse," the most formally demanding verse form of the day. Watson points out, however, that his poem "Dismissing a Friend"; it was "unusual in that it violates the rule that the two middle couplets must observe verbal parallelism," adding that Chinese critics excused this kind of violation in the case of a genius like Li.