But I think this is an underestimation of Bai Juyi's artistic achievements in poetry. Bai Juyi's style should be "vulgar but not vulgar" From beginning to end, except for the turning point of the story itself, Bai Juyi has always been straightforward in narrative skills and artistic feelings, and his language is easy to understand. But can you say that Song of Eternal Sorrow has no aesthetic feeling of poetry? No one dares to say so at all times and in all countries.
Since Bai Juyi's artistic achievements in poetry are so detached, why can't he compare with Du Fu? There are two reasons: Bai Juyi is best at singing Yuefu poems, and quatrains, especially metrical poems, are no match for Lao Du (there was no one in the past, there is no one now, and there will be no one who can challenge Lao Du Ge's metrical poems in the future); The second is that Du Fu's classical poems are no worse than Bai Juyi's. Du Fu is a pioneer of the new Yuefu poetry style. His Yuefu poems contributed to the development of the new Yuefu movement in the mid-Tang Dynasty, and directly influenced the new Yuefu creations of Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi in the mid-Tang Dynasty, such as "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", all of which were great poems.