The Yuanbai School of Poetry refers to the two poets Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi.
The Yuanbai School of Poetry refers to the Han and Meng School of Poetry and the later mid-Tang Dynasty poetry school represented by Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi. They emphasized realism and favored popularity. They launched the New Yuefu Movement, emphasizing the function of poetry in punishing evil and promoting good, and reviewing current affairs. In terms of language, they strived to be popular and easy to understand.
This school of poets emphasizes realism and popularization, and takes a completely different creative path from the Han and Meng poetry schools.
Zhao Yi of the Qing Dynasty said: "The poems of Han, Meng, Yuan, and Bai are the best. Han and Meng were very clever, and they could say what others dare not say; Yuan and Bai were frank and easy, and they could say what others* **I want to speak." (Volume 4 of "Oubei Poetry Talk") On the surface, the two seem to be running in opposite directions, but in essence they are both innovations. Although they take different paths, they end up in the same direction.
Introduction to the poet:
Yuan Zhen:
Yuan Zhen (779~831), courtesy name Wei Zhi, was from Henan. He had rich experiences in his life. He had been a prime minister and a general, and he had also been exiled to a border town and struggled hard against the authoritarian eunuchs.
Yuan Zhen's Yuefu poetry creation was influenced by Li Shen, a contemporary of his generation.
Li Shen is the poet famous for "Hoeing Day at Noon". He wrote twenty "New Title Yuefu" poems. Yuan Zhen was deeply inspired after reading them and composed twelve poems and poems. poetry. Later, he sang harmony with others and composed nineteen more "Ancient Yuefu Inscriptions", such as "Poems for the Weaver Woman", "Poems for Tian Family" and "Poems for Lianchang Palace".
"Lianchang Palace Ci" is a long narrative poem. The poet intends to explore the causes of political chaos in the Tang Dynasty before and after the Anshi Rebellion through the rise and fall of Lianchang. The opening chapter begins with the desolate scene of "Lianchang Palace is full of bamboos and has been deserted for a long time." It leads to an "old man in the palace" recounting the rise and fall of Lianchang Palace in the past and present.
Bai Juyi:
Bai Juyi (772~846), whose courtesy name was Letian. He is a very talented and precocious poet. When he was seventeen or eighteen years old, he once went to Chang'an and brought his poems to meet Gu Kuang, a famous poet at that time.
Gu Kuang looked down on this young man who had just arrived. Looking at the name on the poem scroll, he joked: "Milan is expensive in Chang'an, so it's not easy to live in Chang'an." But after reading "The wild fire cannot burn it all, the spring breeze When "Bi Juyi is born", the old master quickly changed his mind and said: "With such talent, it is not difficult for Ju Yi!" This small success may have strengthened Bai Juyi's idea of ????devoting his life to poetry creation.
Bai Juyi was diligent in writing all his life. When he recalled his life in his later years, he said: "Everything I have admired, felt, gained, lost, experienced, forced, and understood in my life has been It is published in the article, and it can be known after opening the book."
There are nearly three thousand poems by Bai Juyi in existence, which far exceeds that of Li and Du in number, and is second to none in the Tang Dynasty.