"Pipa Xing" depicts Bai Juyi's derogatory loneliness when he saw off guests on the Yangtze River during the tenure of Sima in Jiangzhou, and heard a female performer from Chang'an play the pipa. There are two things that are particularly successful about Pipa Xing: one is to compare the painful experience of the female dancer in the capital and her own debasement, and to express the theme of the whole poem that everyone knows, but cannot say: "The same is the end of the world, why should we have known each other when we meet!"

The second is the description of the sound of the pipa, through vivid image metaphors, as well as the rendering of the environment, the feelings of the characters, etc., so that people can feel like they are in the music.

Historically, many people have thought that "Pipa Xing" is a masterpiece on a par with "Song of Long Hatred", and Hu Shi even thinks that the achievement of "Pipa Xing" is higher than "Song of Long Hatred".

Miscellaneous poems

According to the classification of Bai's Changqing Collection compiled by Yuan Zhi for Bai Juyi, miscellaneous poems generally refer to poems that cannot be classified into three categories: "satire", "leisure", and "sentimental".

This kind of poetry is often written casually because of encountering certain time and space situations or things, which makes the author laugh and groan, and is often used as a tool to comfort each other with friends.

Since the three categories of "irony", "leisure" and "sentimentality" are all ancient style poems, all of Bai Juyi's near-style poems are classified as "rhythmic poems". These "poems" may be further classified. Take "Jianglou Sunset Beckoning" as an example:

The river tower looks at the sea and the sky at sunset, and the east looks at the vast, and the mountains and rivers are wide and long. The lights are on the four sides of the city, and the galaxy is in the middle of the water. The wind blows the ancient trees on sunny days and rains, and the moon shines on the sand and summer night frost. Can you cool off the heat in the Jianglou, it is cooler than the Junthatch house.

This poem is Bai Juyi's summer in Hangzhou. I want to invite friends to Wanghai Tower as a guest and write. The first and second sentences write about the distant view. Three or four sentences write about the scene of close view. The fifth and sixth sentences adopt a metaphorical technique, using "rain" to describe the "sound of the wind" and "frost" to describe the "moonlight", borrowing the cool imagery of "rain" and "frost" to lead to the "summer heat" in seven or eight sentences as a reason to invite friends.

Su Xuan praised the couplet "The Wind Blows the Ancient Trees on a Sunny Day, the Moon Shines on the Flat Sand and the Summer Night Frost", and believes that it can be used as an example of Bai Juyi's excellent works.

Prose ─

The prose of Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhi was famous in the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, and the literary reputation was still above Han Yu at that time. Later, the literary names of Yuan and Bai were not obvious for several reasons: first, because the ancient literary movement of the Northern Song Dynasty advocated the promotion of Han Yu, and secondly, because the poetry of Yuan and Bai was too prosperous. and obscured its reputation.

Bai Juyi's "Book of Hewei" and "Book of Yuan Jiu" reflect the friendship between Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi. The Nine Books of the Yuan Dynasty is one of the important documents in the history of Chinese literature. Its writing is smooth and vivid, the emotions are sincere, the reasoning is logical, and it has a unique style.

"Preface to Visiting Dalin Temple", "The Story of the Grass Hall", "The Story of the Cold Spring Pavilion", etc., are fresh and eternal, and have a significant impact on the creation of later essays.

Bai Juyi once served as a knowledgeable system. He responded to the reform of the official style of the Yuan Dynasty at that time, such as 詔 and 誥. Written in ancient script. He was a responder to the Guwen movement.

Others, such as Bai Juyi's Fu and "Hundred Dao Judgments" prepared for the scientific examination, were the objects of the scholars' competition for simulation at that time, and his "Celin" was also made for the scientific examination. During the Jin Dynasty, Tu Dan translated the "Celin" into the Jurchen script, which was one of the earliest Han classics translated into the Jurchen script.

Character image, philosophy of life - Bai Juyi described his philosophy of life as "good will help the world, and poor will be good to themselves", believing that we should stick to our ideals and wait for the right time to come.

When the time comes, we should strive to practice our ideals, which are reflected in the poems, that is, the creation of "satirical poems"; before the time comes, we should cultivate ourselves, and reflect them in the poems, which is the creation of "leisure poems" that are content and peaceful.

Bai Juyi's personal cultivation can be summed up by the word "contentment". Chen Yinke believes that Bai Juyi's idea of "contentment" originates from Lao Tzu's idea of "contentment without disgrace".

Bai Juyi's idea of contentment is also often expressed in poems, for example, when he was the school secretary, "he had six thousand dollars, and there was more than one month", and then when the official position was transferred and the salary was adjusted, Bai Juyi also had many poems and writings, most of which can also reflect his contentment and happiness, for example: Ren Zuo left "2,000 pieces of paper for the month, 300,000 yuan for the year of shame", "890,000 yuan for the prince's guests, give it to the moon", and the young master of the prince "100,000 yuan per month, the court hired me as an idler", and received half a salary after retirement (to Shi)" The whole family has no boredom here, and there is more than half of the wealth", "longevity and seventy-five, and fifty thousand".

From the initial monthly income of 16,000 yuan, to the highest monthly income of 100,000 yuan, and the monthly income of 50,000 yuan after retirement, Bai Juyi mostly showed a contented mentality. Even if he was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima and was in a period of extreme despair, he could still say, "Although he is in Yuanjun today, and his official character is the fifth, he has a monthly salary of 40,000 or 50,000 yuan, he has cold clothes, hunger and food, and he can be said to be the son of the Bai family if he gives to his family outside of his body!"

Make friends

Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhi were close friends, and the two had a similar understanding of the function of poetry, so they became comrades-in-arms of the Xin Yuefu Movement. Bai Juyi once used "the hero of the world, only the king and the ear" to describe the friendship between the two. Bai Juyi lived in Luoyang in his later years, and often sang and corresponded with Liu Yuxi.

Romance –

During the Tang Dynasty, the social atmosphere was open, and the culture of officials feasting and drinking with courtesans flourished, and the atmosphere of government decrees at that time was very different from that of later generations.

Bai Juyi once had a number of courtesans, the most famous of which was Fan Su, which can be found in the "Biography of Bai Juyi in the Old Tang Dynasty". Bai Juyi himself is not taboo about courtesans, and descriptions of courtesans are often found in his poems, such as "The Nine Books of the Yuan", "The Wine Yin", "Jiangnan Joy Meets Xiao Jiuche, Because of the Old Tour of Chang'an, the Play Gives Fifty Rhymes" and so on.

In the poems that Bai Juyi's friends Yuan Zhi and Liu Yuxi gave to each other, there are also descriptions of courtesans: for example, Yuan Zhen once invited Bai Juyi's courtesan Shang Linglong to Yuezhou, and when Shang Linglong returned, Yuan Zhi also gave Bai Juyi a poem.

After Bai Juyi stepped down from Hangzhou, he took the courtesans of Hangzhou back to Luoyang, and these courtesans later returned to Hangzhou.

Bai Juyi's dealings with courtesans also caused him to receive many criticisms. Gong Mingzhi of the Song Dynasty believed that Bai Juyi was associated with courtesans, representing him to abandon government affairs. Shu Wu, who was widely controversial because of the Hu Feng incident, accused Bai Juyi of being a prostitute who was disrespectful to women, which caused widespread discussion.

Shi Jihang believes that these accusations against Bai Juyi "have a tendency to fight and criticize the smell", and Shu Wu misread the words when quoting, which may cause misunderstandings in interpretation.

Shi Jihang also pointed out that Bai Juyi had a good relationship with the prostitutes Fan Su and Xiaoman, although it is unknown whether there were any deviant things, but even if there were, it was not a joke, it could be said that the two were in love, so the matter between Bai Juyi and the prostitute was really not important, and almost all literati at that time had it, and Bai Juyi should not be blamed alone.

In his later years, Bai Juyi released all the courtesans and wrote many poems of reminiscence, and he was full of strong nostalgia for these courtesans. When Su Xuan was demoted in his later years, he once praised Wang Chaoyun for being "not as happy as Yang Zhi" and was willing to go to Lingnan with him. It can also be seen that at least in the Song Dynasty, most literati did not regard raising courtesans as a despicable thing.

Folk image ─

Hui Hong, a monk of the Song Dynasty, recorded in "Cold Fasting Night Talk": "Every time Bai Juyi wrote a poem, he asked an old lady to read it first. If the old lady can read it, she will include the poem, and if she can't read it, she will rewrite the verse. Therefore, the poems of the late Tang Dynasty are vulgar and slangy. 」

Regarding this account, many people in the past have doubted its authenticity, such as "Tang and Song Poems", Hu Shi, and Ye Qingbing. However, Hu Shi and Ye Qingbing also quoted this account as circumstantial evidence that Bai Juyi intended to use spoken language into the poem. It may also be because Bai Juyi's poetry has the characteristics of being easily understood by the public, Zhang Wei said in the "Preface to the Poet's Subject and Object" that Bai Juyi is the master of education. (To be continued......)