Bai Juyi was a great writer, but in the history of Tang literature, his position could not surpass Li Bai and Du Fu. Even for a long time, he still appeared in a negative image.
But in Japan, Bai Juyi's position is second to none, far from that of Li and Du. In the Heian Dynasty, the word "Wenxuan" could even be used as a proper noun of Bai Wenxuan. Nowadays, it is common to call the ancients by their first names, but the Japanese still call Bai Juyi "Bai Letian". In front of the tomb of Bai Juyi in Luoyang, there are even more monuments in Japanese than in Chinese. The inscription actually praises Bai Juyi as "the benefactor of Japanese culture".
Why is Bai Juyi in such a high position in Japan?
Many people say this is because Bai Juyi's poems are simple in language and easy for Japanese to read. However, such an answer seems a little too contemptuous of the Chinese level of the Japanese: how can the Japanese respect Bai Juyi as the first because they can use literary selections with many allusions?
The reason lies in a series of historical coincidences.
Next you'll see
● Several coincidences of Bai Juyi in Japan's "election".
● The canonization of Li and Du Fu's poems is slow and not popular enough.
● Bai Juyi helps the Japanese to establish aesthetic standards.
Several coincidences
Bai Juyi's collected works were first introduced to Japan in 838 AD. According to the Record of Emperor Wende of Japan, the Japanese Taizai Shor Fujiwara Yueshou "received goods from the Tang Dynasty and was suitable for Bai Yuan to write poems." The emperor was very happy. "(1) from five. This year is the third year that Tang Wenzong was founded. Bai Juyi is 67 years old and lives in Luoyang.
Bai Juyi's collected works before his death were very popular in Japan, which was unusual in the middle Tang Dynasty when printing was not popular and literary dissemination was inconvenient. In contrast, Li and Du, who were 60 or 70 years earlier than Bai Juyi, were introduced to Japan 100 years later. ②
The Japanese erected a monument in front of Bai Juyi's tomb in Luoyang.
What was introduced to Japan at that time was Bai Juyi's anthology?
In heian period, the Japanese devoted themselves to introducing the culture of the Tang Dynasty. They sent envoys to the Tang Dynasty to collect China's first-class works and absorbed China's classics with merchant ships, so envoys and businessmen became messengers of cultural exchanges.
Although the diplomatic envoys in Tang Dynasty were senior Japanese intellectuals, they had to face many inconveniences brought by foreigners' status in Tang Dynasty. It is difficult for them to judge China's first-class literary works by reading the texts carefully, but only by their popularity. Businessmen don't care how deep the literary value is, but only take popularity as the purchase criterion.
As far as popularity is concerned, China's popular literary world in the ninth century belongs to Bai Juyi.
As early as the 10th year of Yuanhe (8 15), 44-year-old Bai Juyi talked about the popularity of his works with Yuanhe in Nine Books:
From Chang 'an to Jiangxi for three or four thousand miles, there are often poets in rural schools, Buddhist temples, anti-swimming and boating. Scholars, monks, widows, virgins, everyone who sings servant poems.
In the sixth year of Huichang (846), Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty wrote a mourning poem for Bai Juyi.
Boys perform "Song of Eternal Sorrow", and Hu Er can sing "Pipa". The article is full of people, and I once missed you.
For the Japanese, the world-famous Bai Juyi naturally represents the first-class culture of the Tang Dynasty, so it is urgent to introduce his poems. He is not satisfied with those sporadic single works and single-line collections, but pursues the complete works. One of the important tasks of the envoys sent to the Tang Dynasty in 838 was to collect the complete works of Bai Juyi.
The National Museum in Tokyo, Japan, collects the ancient edition of Bai Wen Ji.
Coincidentally, Bai Juyi is one of the few poets in China who pay attention to collating the collected works. In the fifth year of Huichang (845), he prefaced the anthology:
There are five books in the collection: one from Lushan Torinji Jing Zang Yuan, one from Suzhou nanzenji Jing Zang Yuan, one from Shengshan Temple Pot Tower Faku, one from my nephew Guilang and one from my grandson. Hide at home and pass it on to the future. Biographies of Japanese and Silla families in Beijing are not recorded here. ③
Therefore, his complete works are not hard to find, and Bai Ji was quickly copied to Japan.
It is worth mentioning that during the late Tang Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty, while the Japanese constantly absorbed and digested Bai Juyi's works, a revolution took place in China's literary world. Serious literature severely criticized popular literature, while Du Mu mocked Bai Juyi:
"Likable not to show off, not ZhuangShiYa people. Spread to the world, sons, fathers, daughters, mothers, professors, obscene words? R language can't enter people's bones. "
Su Shi, on the other hand, was more concise, saying that "Yuan is lighter than white customs" and belittled Bai Juyi's position.
Coincidentally, Sugawara no michizane, the "God-learning" of the Ping 'an Dynasty, suggested abolishing the envoy in Tang Dynasty in 894, and the envoy in Tang Dynasty became the last one in 838. Since then, China culture has not been systematically absorbed by Japanese as before, and Bai Juyi's works seem to have set foot on an isolated cultural island, avoiding the impact of ideological changes in China's literary world, and have always maintained its heyday in the first half of the 9th century.
Neither Li nor Du is obvious.
As Bai Juyi's predecessors, why didn't Li and Du, the two peaks of China's poetry, have such a great influence in Japan?
One of the important reasons is the spread of selected works.
Li and Du didn't pay as much attention to the assembly as Bai Juyi did, and they just caught up with the Anshi Rebellion in their later years. The war had a great influence on the spread of literature. In the first year of Baoying (762), Li wrote a preface to the collection of Caotang for Li Bai:
"I have something since the Central Plains, and I have avoided the land for eight years; At that time, the writings were lost, and those who survived today are others. "
During the Dali period (766? ) Huang Fan prefaces Du Fu's collection:
Sixty volumes of Selected Works are located in the south of Jianghan. It's time to use force. Sven will fall, so it's not known to the East. "
The spread of Selected Works was blocked, which greatly delayed the classicalization process of Li and Du Fu's poems.
Therefore, the status of Li and Du in the hearts of Tang people is probably unmatched by Bai Juyi. Du Fu's fame was not obvious before his death, while Li Bai, who was famous before his death, had a long process of canonization of his works. When choosing Tang poetry today, Li Bai's poems are almost a must. But in the Tang dynasty, there was no such high treatment. For example, Guo Xiu Ji (Tianbao three years, AD 744) and Ba Suo Zhong Ji (Gan Yuan three years, AD 760), which included the works of poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, did not include Li Bai's poems.
Until the era of Bai Juyi, Li and Du were not pursued. In the twentieth year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dezong (in 804, the year after Bai Juyi's book was awarded the title of "Outstanding Emperor"), Japanese eminent monks sent envoys to the Tang Dynasty to collect the collected works of the Tang Dynasty and returned to China to write On the Secret Pavilion, which reflected the literary view of the Tang Dynasty at the beginning of the 9th century, but it still did not give Li a special position.
The canonization of Li and Du Fu's poems began with the vigorous advocacy of Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi, and was not announced until the Northern Song Dynasty. In the era of Bai Juyi, Li and Du needed to use Bai Juyi to expand their influence, which obviously could not be compared with the latter. Even in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, in the biographies of Li, Du and Bai in the Book of the Old Tang Dynasty, Li and Du were just passers-by in the Biography of Wen Yuan, and Bai Juyi was regarded as the best among poets:
"If the tone system, Yang is indeed a virtuous man in ancient and modern times, not worthy of all admire its text, not as good as Yuan and Bai. ④"
Therefore, the Japanese did not introduce Li and Du as first-class poets before the era of Bai Juyi, not because of their unique vision, but because of the spread of Selected Works. Moreover, under the historical conditions at that time, even China had not begun to respect Li and Du, and it was even more impossible for the Japanese to lead the understanding of China in advance and give Li and Du lofty status.
Aesthetic Excellence
Some people think that the Japanese who advocate "mourning for things" and have delicate feelings are very close to Bai Juyi's leisurely and sad poems, so the Japanese especially like Bai Juyi. This statement seems reasonable, but it is not. The arguer reversed the temporal logic of their influence.
For example, The Tale of Genji, a masterpiece of mourning for things, is the first book, but the author Haruki Murakami is a loyal reader of Bai Juyi, and the use of Bai Juyi's poems can be seen everywhere.
In addition, Sugawara no michizane, the God of Knowledge, advocates "national culture" with Japanese characteristics, but what is the style of "national culture"? His poems are "like lotte, proud of books". ⑤
Modern writer Yasunari Kawabata summed up the traditional beauty of Japanese literature with "Snow Moon Flower" in Nobel Prize in Literature's acceptance speech. This is the "Snowmoon Flower" that condenses the unique aesthetic taste of the Japanese, and it is also from Bai Juyi's "Send Yin Xie Law": "Qin's family and wine partners have abandoned me, and I remember you most in Snowmoon."
Therefore, it is not so much that the unique aesthetic taste of the Japanese makes it easier for them to accept Bai Juyi's poems, but rather that their aesthetic taste was established with the help of Bai Juyi.
Japanese film Genji? Millennium? Stills, the people in the play read "White Anthology".
Why do the Japanese and Bai Juyi fit so well?
Bai Juyi's collection was introduced to Japan in the middle of the Heian Dynasty. The emperor's power declined and his spouse Fujiwara came to power. The legal system gradually failed, and the rise and fall of aristocratic status depended entirely on their closeness to Fujiwara. For aristocrats, political ideals no longer exist, enterprising spirit is greatly weakened, and eating, drinking and having fun become a daily life. In addition, natural disasters and social unrest occurred frequently at that time, which coincided with the "arrival of the last law" advocated by Buddhism, and the aristocratic world-weariness was high and restless.
The Japanese aristocratic society in this period was simply a mirror of Bai Juyi's life in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.
In Bai Juyi's later years, the struggle between North Korea's cattle and Li factions intensified; After the Mana incident, the eunuch power reached the sky; Not to mention that there were many buffer towns outside the imperial court, and the Tang Dynasty gradually became terminally ill, but the scholars were helpless. Faced with this difficult social situation, traditional Confucianism is useless. Bai Juyi, who wandered between Confucianism and Buddhism, chose "seclusion";
The great hermit lives in the city, and the little hermit sails in the autumn. Autumn sails are too cold and the market is too noisy.
It is better to hide in the middle and hide in the company. It seems out of place, neither busy nor idle.
There is no effort and effort, and there is no hunger and cold. No official business at the end of the year, money with the month.
If you are good at boarding, there are autumn mountains in the south of the city. If you love wandering, there is a spring garden in the east of the city.
If you want to get drunk, go out to the guests' party. There are many gentlemen in Luo, and they can speak freely.
If you want to lie high, hide yourself. There are no horses and chariots. I expect to get to the door.
In life, it is difficult to have it both ways. Cheap means bitter, cold and timid, while expensive means more troubles.
Only hermits are lucky and safe here. The communication between the four is not smooth and the agreement is rich.
Although this kind of thought is not beneficial to the people and the world, it can comfort the anxious aristocrats. The aristocrats facing similar difficulties with Bai Juyi, inspired by the first-class poets in China, found a way to go and were naturally depressed.
To annotate ...
(1) The blackboard wins the beauty, A Record of Emperor Wende of Japan, Hong Wen Pavilion, Japan, 1977, p. 2 1.
(2) Watanabe, The Acceptance of Bai Wenxuan in Heian Period, Master's Thesis of Zhejiang University 20 12, p. 1.
(3) Zhu Jincheng's Six Notes on Bai Juyi, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1988, p. 39 16.
4 [post-Jin] Liu? D et al. Biography of Baiju in the Old Tang Dynasty, Zhonghua Book Company, 2000, p. 1 16.
⑤ The preface of Selected Works of Naboben Bai is quoted from Takeda Zhenzhao's On Bai Juyi's Influence on Japanese Literature.