Chinese Poet Li Bai

The Chinese poet Li Bai (李⽩) is also called Li Po depending on the type of dialect being used. Li Bai and Dufu (712-770) are probably China’s favorite ancient poets. It is interesting that they both lived and worked for the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty in Chengdu. They also knew each other and even wrote poems about one another. They faced the same problems as well. Both poets lived through the An Lushan Rebellion. Li Bai got in trouble for being a supporter of a prince who rebelled. And Dufu sided with the court. Both poets lived inSichuan – Li Bai when he was young and Dufu when he was old. Likewise, they both traveled extensively. Li Bai is known as a Romantic Poet. Along with writing romantic poems about women, he romanticized nature. Dufu, on the other hand, is known as a Realist poet. On the other hand, Li Bai apparently led a wild life.

He is said to have killed people in martial arts challenges and personal duels. He wrote about common things such as natural places and cities he saw, romance, war and death. Along with having a wild life, writing poems and getting into trouble, politically, he worked in the Hanlin Academy in Changan, he was a friend of the Emperor, and he lived in exile. Tang dynasty is considered as the golden age of Chinese poetry. Whereas Li Bai is the "poet of poets." He is recognized as the most outstanding poet out of all the Chinese romantic poets.

Li Bai is called "immortal banished from Heaven" by literary critics in china. It sums up not onlythe characteristics of Li Bai's poetry but also the personality of the poet himself. Early Life People are not sure where he was born. Some speculate that he was born in Central Asia. When he was young, he lived in Sichuan near Chengdu. He liked to read and study ancient poetry and ancient texts such as the Dao De Jing that is the central text of Daoism. Daoism is more romantic than Confucianism and Buddhism, so Li Bai became a Daoist. He was thought to be a genius, he also practiced martial arts and killed people in duels.

Wine inspires Li Bai. It is not only because Li Bai wrote a lot of poems about wine but also because wine is somehow the home to his soul. Du Fu described Li Bai like this: "he sleeps on the street when he is drunk. He would ignore the calling from the emperor and call himselfthe immortal of wine." However, at the same time, the life of Li Bai is also full of contradiction and sufferings. There is a huge gap between the ideal and the reality, which is not easy to cross. Li Bai could not realize his dreams so that he can only drink his sorrow down to get transient satisfaction.

The death of Li Bai is also legendary. Only a romantic person like Li Bai would have such a romantic death. It is said that one night Li Bai was drunk by himself on a boat near Niuzhu rock. He tried to fish for the moon in the water and drowned. Here is a story about Li Bai: The peony in the palace bloomed. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Concubine Yang came to enjoy the flowers and called for Li Bai to write poems. However, Li Bai was heavily drunk. The ministers had to carry him to the palace. When he woke, Li Bai asked the emperor to bestow him more wine so that he could write good poems. He wrote three poems very quickly and then he finished the drink. Xuangzong was pleased and asked Concubine Yang to give Li Bai a glass of rakee from western country.

Li Bai ended up spending most of his life traveling. During his travels, he wrote many poems about nature. These popular poems combined exaggeration and vivid analogy. Here are some examples of verses: "Traveling on the roads in Shu is harder than scaling the blue sky" (HardRoads in Shu), "see how the Yellow River's waters move out of heaven, entering the ocean, never to return" (Drinking You A Toast), and "The 3000-foot-long fall is straight to fly; Is the Milky Way falling from the sky?" (Overlook at Lushan Fall) The following is a vedio about Li Bai's poems andthe scenic beauty under his pen. Poetry from the Heaven Once a renowned Chinese poet read Li Bai’s poems and he gave Li Bai the name " Banished Transcendent ." It is because the imagination in Li Bai’s poems are so novel and bold that common people could never think this way. When he wrote poems, Li Bai does not like to use obscure phrases or allusions as some poets did. He learned a lot from folk literature and folk songs of Qin dynasty, Han dynasty and Wei Period, which shaped his own style. Li Bai uses the simplest words but combines them with the most original imagination, by using literary techniques such as exaggeration, metaphor, and personification to the extreme. That is the reason why people think his poems are bold, unrestrained and ethereal.

The variable imagination, grand images, fresh phrases and unrestrained style in his poems affected poets of the later generations a lot. Li Bai often looked back to the past for inspiration. He very rarely wrote about the future. The celebration of alcoholic beverages and a drunken nomadic lifestyle was not the only reason that his work was considered to be controversial. He often wrote poems from different perspectives and viewpoints, including from the perspectives of women. It was considered to be inappropriate at the time for a man to write with the viewpoint of a woman. He also broke many established rules of poetry at the time, and this was seen as controversial by many people. When placed in context, we can understand why this was an issue. Artists often push the boundaries of what is acceptable. This was a common occurrence among painters in the last 300 years and musicians and film-makers today. Li Bai pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable at the time. He is remembered as a gifted man who led an extraordinary life and left behind a legacy of over 1000 great works of Chinese literature.