Ha Jin has written a novelistic biography based on the limited details known about Li Bai’s life. He mixes concrete facts, contemporary legends, assumed history, and compelling stories to create a historic myth of the Tang dynasty poet. Even Li Bai’s name is a motley matter. In various times and places he was also known as Li Po, Li Bo, Li Taibai, Li T’ai Po, and Rihaku. In addition, he was often called by the monikers Li Twelve, zhexian (Banished Immortal), shixian (Poet Immortal), jiuxian (Wine Immortal), and Green Lotus Scholar. The many legends of his life due justice to his many names.
Li Bai wrote in many poetic styles, although he was not known as a strict structuralist in form, rhyme, or meter. He began his career by writing fu, rhapsody- a form of prose poetry that tended to be lengthy, resembling poetic essays, often on political topics. He also admired the more informal Chinese poetic traditions- “gufeng, or ancient folk poems, a kind of poetry written before the Tang dynasty without specific metric patterns or rhymes; yuefu, or folk songs, which Bai composed throughout his life; and Chuci, Songs of Chu, a body of poems composed mainly by Qu Yuan (340-278 BC).” Bai was also well-versed in the more traditional forms, such as the jueju, a metered and rhymed quatrain, and the yuefu, an eight-lined poem, although he often distorted the forms and added little twists to his own poems. Eventually, Bai would even incorporate Liangzhou Song-lyrics, war ballads from the frontier regions, into his repertoire.
Throughout his life, Bai was heavily influenced by Daoist teachings. Late in life, he even endured the rigors of a Daoist induction to become a full-fledged Fellow. He also studied swordsmanship and Buddhist texts at Daming Temple under the monk, Master Kong-ling, although Bai never subscribed to its philosophical tenets. At a young age, his father, a merchant, sensed literary promise in Bai and gave him money to travel the countryside and gain experience. Bai wandered to Changping Mountain where he met his first mentor, Zhao Rui (659?-742?). With Rui, Bai studied the ancient Legalist texts, the Dao, and zongheng jia, war strategies from the Warring States period. Since Bai did not come from the landed gentry, he was not eligible to take the civil-service exam, but had to hope for ganye, patronage from a high official, by xingjuan, presenting him with one’s own writings, essays, and poems, if he wanted to become a state official. Unlike his mentor, the recluse Rui, Bai was very ambitious and high court officialdom and political influence would be his lifelong goal.
The first poem Bai presented to a minister from the central government, Su Ting, was in an effort to become taken under his wing as a protege. It was a fu, titled “The Great Hunt,” which mixed Bai’s own ambitions with praise for the emperor, using hunting as a metaphor for governance. Bai began, “Rhapsodies are a branch of ancient poetry. The more splendid their words are, the further their meanings can reach. Otherwise, how could they be magnificent enough to move heaven and gods?” It is not his best poetic work and it did not gain him patronage from Su Ting either.
Even though Bai would never achieve the success he craved for in the political realm, there is no doubt that, even in his own lifetime, he was considered a poet for the ages. Jin recounts that early on Bai “had collected folk songs from the people he encountered and even written poems in the same style because the songs were so full of life and raw experience. He had begun to think about how to give his poems the same kind of fluidity, how to render them as spontaneous as natural speech while also maintaining a high level of energy and intensity. He imagined a style that seemed regulated but not burdened by restrictive rules, free but in good order.” For Bai, traveling the country roads was a form of research and inspiration. Bai was also unique in writing many of his poems from the perspective of a female character- in the voice of courtesans, barmaids, mothers, and weavers. He was one of the first Chinese poets to write openly addressing his wife. Bai also found much inspiration in his cups of wine. Many of his best poems were composed extemporaneously in taverns. He wrote, “The host grows more delighted, seeing me drunk/ Together we have forgotten this world.”
One of Bai’s influences was the courtier and poet, Chen Zi’ang. Chen also found Tang poetry to be too stiff and formulaic. He found inspiration in the poems of the Jian’an period (196-220), which were full of passion and raw beauty. Both Chen and Bai also modeled their own poems on the Book of Songs, a volume of 305 songs compiled by Confucius. From the earlier Tang dynasty, Bai was influenced by the poets Luo Binwang, Wang Bo, Yang Jiong, and Lu Zhaolin. His contemporary poet and friend, Meng Haoran commented to Bai, “Ancient poetry tends to be low in style and sentiment, while contemporary poetry is restricted by forms and metric patterns. Only folk songs can be flexible without a fixed form and have longer or shorter lines. My brother, you are a natural talent and this kind of poetry suits you best.” Jin writes, “Beginning in 747, Li Bai’s poetry began to register more of the dark aspects of common people’s lives, as though he was becoming a bard of the land.” Bai recounted the sorrow and hardships of the everyday existence of peasants and soldiers in his later poetry, rather than the frivolous themes of barmaids, drinking, and carousing of his youth. “The Huns take killing as their livelihood/ And since ancient times there have been only/ Yellow deserts growing white bones.”
Bai subscribed to the Daoist doctrine- first succeed spectacularly in politics and then, at one’s height, retire forever to a tranquil hermitage. He wrote, “I have observed the sages of ancient times—/ Whoever did not resign after success would suffer destruction.” Unfortunately, Bai never achieved the political success that would allow him to retire in peace. The highest that he rose was to Royal Secretary at the fifth rank. Time and again, he tried to influence Emperor Xuanzong, whether in court or in war, but he was always a failure. Bai could not master the intrigues and machinations of court life. “I’ll be ashamed of becoming another Jinan,/ Who at age ninety still pored over classics./ It will be better to rise with my sword/ And fight in the desert to do miraculous feats./ If I died in my homestead and fields,/ How could I earn and spread my name?”
At the end of Bai’s life, he picked the wrong prince, Prince Yong, in a succession battle with his older brother, Prince Li Hong, to become the next Tang emperor and so Bai was banished to the westernmost outskirts of the empire, Yelang, before being pardoned, and, eventually, dying in poverty and obscurity. At the end of his life, Bai lamented being pulled in two directions by both politics and his religious order and, therefore, never committing his energies fully to either side. “Trying to be prosperous and divine,/ I have simply wasted my life pursuing both.” In January of 764, the new emperor appointed Li Bai as a councilor. But no officials in his home of Dangtu County could find him. Unbeknownst to all, he had been dead for over a year. Bai might have written his own epitaph, “What I enjoy is a jar of wine when I’m alive/ Why should I need a name of ten thousand years after I’m gone?”
No comments:
Post a Comment