Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi (772–846), also written as Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i, was a Tang dynasty poet, politician, and musician. His courtesy name was Letian. He served as governor of three different provinces, and many of his poems draw on his official career or his observations of daily life. His verse was known for its plain, almost colloquial style, which made him widely popular across medieval East Asia. In Japan, where he influenced the development of literature, he is often called Haku Rakuten, the on'yomi reading of his courtesy name. His younger brother, Bai Xingjian, wrote short stories. Among Bai Juyi’s most famous works are two long narrative poems: "Song of Everlasting Sorrow," about Yang Guifei, and "Song of the Pipa."

Bai Juyi lived during the Middle Tang period, a time of rebuilding after the An Lushan Rebellion and following the poetic peak of Li Bai, Wang Wei, and Du Fu. He was born in 772 in Taiyuan, Shanxi, though he spent most of his childhood in Zhengyang, Henan. His family was poor but scholarly; his father served as an Assistant Department Magistrate of the second class. At age ten, Bai was sent away to live with relatives in Xuzhou, in the Jiangnan region, to escape a war in northern China. His father’s death in 794 brought hard times for the family.

Bai’s education was delayed by seven years because of his father’s death. He passed the jinshi examinations in 800 and likely moved to the capital, Chang’an, in 801. Around this time, he began a long friendship with the scholar Yuan Zhen. In 806, under Emperor Xianzong, he received a minor government post in Zhouzhi, near Chang’an. He became a scholar of the Hanlin Academy in 807 and served as Reminder of the Left from 807 to 815, except for a three-year mourning period after his mother’s death in 811, which he spent along the Wei River. He returned to court in the winter of 814 as Assistant Secretary to the Prince’s Tutor, a low-ranking position he would soon lose.

In 814, Bai got into official trouble. He had made enemies at court, partly because of his writings. He submitted two long memorials—translated as "On Stopping the War"—criticizing a lengthy campaign against a minor Tatar group, and wrote poems satirizing greedy officials and the suffering of common people. Around this time, the warlord Wu Yuanji rebelled in Henan, and after being denied a pardon, he turned to assassination. On July 13, 815, assassins killed Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng and attacked another official, Pei Du, causing panic in the capital. Bai overstepped his minor rank by memorializing the emperor on this matter, a breach of protocol. His opponents also accused him of lacking filial piety, citing two poems—"In Praise of Flowers" and "The New Well"—linked to his mother’s death, which occurred when she fell into a well while looking at flowers. As a result, Bai was demoted to Sub-Prefect and exiled from the capital to Jiujiang (then called Xun Yang) in Jiangxi. After three years, he was sent as governor to a remote part of Sichuan. Traveling up the Yangzi River, he visited his friend Yuan Zhen, also in exile, and they explored rock caves at Yichang. Bai was delighted by the flowers and trees along the way.