Bai Juyi and ＂NewYuefu＂

Bai Juyi (772-846) was another great realist poet of the Tang Dynasty. His outstanding contributions lied in not only his excellent poetry creation, but also his proposal of a series of theories on realistic poetry through advocating the New Yuefu Movement. All these exerted major far-reaching influence on that period and later ages.

Bai Juyi, with the courtesy name of Letian and the alias of Xiangshan Jushi, was a native of Taiyuan born in Xinzheng, Henan (today's Xinzheng County, Henan Province). In his youth, he wandered in the area between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, studied hard later, and served as Reminder of the Left, Left Grand Master Admonisher, etc. His official career was not smooth in his middle age. He was framed by political opponents and was demoted to the post of Military Governor of Jiang Prefecture. In his late years, he lived in Luoyang idly until his death. This shows that Bai Juyi's life experience was a course of changing from aspiration and determination to depression and despondency, but he was concerned about people's sufferings. "Aspiring to benefit all people and maintaining personal integrity in action" is his main ideological tendency.

Bai Yuji was the most prolific poet among the poets of the Tang Dynasty. Now nearly 3,000 poems created by him exist, collected in Bai's Changqing Collection. Bai Juyi classified more than 1,300 poems he wrote before the age of 51 into four categories: "satirical poems, leisure poems, sentimental poems and unregulated verses." Among them, the most influential ones are his satirical poems represented by the 50 new Yuefu poems and ten poems in Songs of Internal Regions of Qin. Besides, his sentimental and melancholy poems such as The Eternal Regret and Songs of the Lute are all famous classic poems.

Bai Juyi was an advocate of the New Yuefu Poetry Movement, and the concept of "New Yuefu" was first proposed by Bai Juyi. New Yuefu is Yuefu-style poetry on new themes and current events, fill including three aspects. The first is original new themes. The so-called new themes are mainly relative to ancient themes borrowed for most old Yuefu poems. New Yuefu poems have new themes, so they are also called "new-theme Yuefu poems." The second is comments on current events, continuing the realistic style of poetry pioneered by Du Fu. New Yuefu poems give more emphasis to satire and criticism. The third is that though new Yuefu poems are called "Yuefu," not all of them can be sung with music.

The reason why Bai Juyi advocated the New Yuefu Poetry Movement was closely related to his poetry theories and ideals. First, Bai Juyi emphasized in Preface to New Yuefu from the very beginning: poems "should be created for the emperor, ministers, people, objects and events." He always stuck to the principle of "writing articles for the times and writing poems for events." Bai Juyi's view on poetry is very simple and clear, centering on "people," i.e. reflecting people's sufferings. He clearly proposed the thought and slogan of poetry for people like never before. It was of very important realistic significance in that period. Secondly, Bai Juyi proposed that poetry should "supervise the political situation" and "release people's emotions." In other words, poetry as literature must interact with social politics and must communicate with people's feelings. Literature is always about "thoughts on events" and "emotions," and is not just a kind of entertainment. Therefore, literature and poetry have the unique function and characteristic of combining education with recreation. Third, Bai Juyi advocated that the contents and forms of poetry should be highly unified, with emphasis on the former and that forms should not be polished deliberately because simple and plain forms were acceptable as long as they were closely related to contents.

These theories advocated by Bai Juyi played an active and important role in the development of Chinese ancient poetry and the whole literature. Under the influence and push of Bai Juyi, a number of advocates of new Yuefii jointly promoted the development and expansion of the New Yuefu Poetry Movement and left an important chapter in the history of Chinese poetry.

Bai Juyi not only advocated the New Yuefu Movement, but also earnestly practiced what one advocated and pushed forward the development of new Yuefu with his creation and practice. There are many moving poems among the 50 poems in New Yuefu such as The White-haired Palace Maid, The Old Man with the Broken Arm, The Old Man of Duling and The Old Charcoal Seller, not only truly reproducing the social life scenes of that period, but also revealing his thorough understanding of life. "Silent, she sees the birds appear and disappear,and counts nor spring nor autumn coming year by year," "A ghost, I'd have wandered in Yunnan, always looking for home, over the graves of ten thousand soldiers, mournfully hovering" and "Though his coat is thin, he hopes winter will set in, for cold weather will keep up the charcoal's good price" are all deeply moving lines, containing incisive criticisms of the society and filling people with awe. Many long Yuefu poems by Bai Juyi include such easy-to-read, penetrating and meaningful lines with great depth.

Besides, Bai Juyi's long poems represented by The Eternal Regret are highly narrative and contain many very emotional lines in narrations such as "But rebels beat their war drums, making the earth quake and 'Song of Rainbow Skirt and Coat of Feathers' break" and "The boundless sky and endless earth may pass away, but this vow unfulfilled will be regretted for aye." These are famous lines handed down for thousands of years.

Bai Juyi's poems not only excel in narration and expression of emotions, but also depict scenery very well. On Lake Qiantang in Spring is one example.

West of Pavilion Jia and north of Lonely Hill,

Water brim level with the bank and clouds hang low.

Disputing for sunny trees, early orioles trill;

Pecking vernal mud in, young swallows come and go.

A riot of blooms begins to dazzle the eye;

Amid short grass the horse hoofs can barely be seen.

I love best the east of the lake under the sky;

The bank paved with white sand is shaded by willows green.

The enchanting air of early spring fills the spring scenery. Just like all these are very natural, the poet's style of writing is also very relaxed. There is no meticulous polishing and no purposeful exaggeration. Trilling early orioles and young swallows pecking mud enter readers' hearts naturally. Grass on the Ancient Plain - Farewell to a Friend, a famous poem created by Bai Juyi in his early years, is more widely known:

Wild grasses spread over ancient plain; With spring and fall they come and go. Fire tries to burn them up in vain; They rise again when spring winds blow. Their fragrance overruns the way; Their green invades the ruined town. To see my friend going away, My sorrow grows like grass overgrown.

There is an interesting story behind this poem. It is said that Bai Juyi went to the capital Chang'an from the region south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River at the age of 16 and called on Gu Kuang (727-815), a celebrated scholar of that period. After learning Bai Juyi's name (with the literal meaning of living for free easily), Gu Kuang joked by saying "Prices are high in Chang'an, and it is not easy to live here." However, when he read "Fire tries to bum them up in vain; they rise again when spring winds blow" in his book of poems, he could not help praising him, "With such talent, you can live here without any difficulty!" Thus, Bai Juyi's poetry became prominent, and he finally became a very important poet in the history of Chinese poetry.