Among the poets in the Tang Dynasty, Bai Yuan was often juxtaposed. Yuan refers to Yuan Zhen, while Bai refers to Bai Juyi. They made friends because of literature, and finally became lifelong friends because of three views. He wrote more than 100 poems in his life, leaving many classic sentences.
Bai Yuan's turn:
Around the 19th year of Tang Zhenyuan (AD 803), Bai Juyi met Yuan Zhen, who was seven years younger than himself. They met because "they were in the same school" and were fascinated by each other's talents. Later, he was "awarded the school book lang" by the court. Subsequently, a friendship of more than 30 years was opened.
In the meantime, the two experienced the ups and downs of being an official and lived a happy life. They wrote poems and novels together, advocated the "New Yuefu Movement" and were demoted. Although there were some misunderstandings in the middle, they finally came together again.
During their life of knowing each other and cherishing each other, they wrote more than 100 "chorus poems". According to Bai Juyi's "Reward Micro", such works have reached the point of "full box".
About the friendship between two people. In the biography of outstanding talents in Tang Dynasty, the new study room in Yuan Dynasty said: "(Bai Juyi) and Yuan Zhen are very good at sticking to their knees and have the same phonology, so they are called Bai Yuan in the world."
Later generations Luo Peng wrote a poem "Mourning for Teachers and Farmers", and directly used "Bai Yuan" as a synonym for "Poet Friends". It can be seen that "Friends of Bai Yuan" is not inferior to the characters in the traditional "Eight Friends Worship".
The era when Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi lived was the period when the "An Shi Rebellion" ended and Yuan and Zhongxing came to power.
After eight years of war, Xian Zong made great efforts to reform. During the 15 years in power, he adopted an enlightened attitude in politics. Therefore, realistic poets like Yuan and Bai were able to display their talents in this period.
At first, both of them had the ambition of "helping the world while achieving their goals". And they are all admirers of Du Fu. They advocated that poetry should serve politics, so they vigorously promoted the reform of Tang poetry.
Later, Yuan Zhen was demoted to Jiangling for offending powerful people, and Bai Juyi wrote "On the Third Form of Yuan Zhen" to get rid of the charges, but failed. Soon, Bai Juyi was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima, and Yuan Zhen sent poems to show his comfort.
Bai Juyi was deeply moved when he received this poem. He wrote a poem and replied, "You read your poem in front of the lamp, and it's all gone." When your eyes are sore, the lights are still sitting in the dark and the waves are beating against the wind. "When he received a poem from an old friend, he was so excited that he had to light a lamp to watch the night, and his eyes hurt. When all the lights went out, he still sat in the dark and recalled, but he couldn't bear to sleep.
The friendship between Yuan and Bai was later alienated because of different political views. Bai Juyi divorced from politics in his later years and made a lot of friends, while Yuan Zhen had few friends except Bai Juyi, so although he was seven years younger than Bai, he died a few years earlier.