Illustration of Bai Juyi's portrait
Bai Juyi is one of the great poets in the history of China. His representative works include Song of Eternal Sorrow, Charcoal Man, Pipa Travel and so on. In textbooks, Bai Juyi is known as "the poet's demon" and "the poet king". But in historical records, he is the real "poetic immortal". Isn't the title "Poet Fairy" Li Bai's? What the hell is going on here?
How did Bai Juyi get the title of "Poet Fairy"? What we see in textbooks is that Li Bai is a poet, Du Fu is a poet sage, Bai Juyi is a poet and Wang Wei is Shi Fo ... They were all given a resounding nickname, but in the Tang Dynasty at that time, Bai Juyi had another nickname.
Illustration of Bai Juyi's portrait
According to the Book of Old Tang Dynasty (166) and Biography of Bai Juyi (1 16), those who know me think they are poetic immortals, while those who don't know me think they are poetic demons.
According to the records of two historical books, Old Tang Shu and New Tang Shu, Bai Juyi stated in his letter to Yuan Zhen: "Those who know me call me a poet, and those who don't know me call me a poet."
Let's go and see if Bai Juyi's self-reported letter is authoritative. This letter was later called Nine Books of Yu Yuan, and more than 3,600 words were copied from the original book of Old Tang Dynasty. It can be seen that in this letter of Bai Juyi, it is indisputable that he was called "Poet Fairy" and "Poet Magic" at that time.
Illustration of Bai Juyi's portrait
In Bai Juyi's original words, today we call him a "poet demon". Is it because we don't know him? In fact, at that time, he recognized both titles, but preferred the title of "Poet Fairy". Who wants to be a demon instead of a fairy?
Since Bai Juyi is a poet, what is the title of Li Bai? As we all know, Li Bai was born more than 70 years earlier than Bai Juyi. If Li Bai was also called "Poet Fairy" at that time, Bai Juyi would not dare to call him "Poet Fairy" again, which is obviously an infringement of intellectual property rights!
Li Bai's portrait illustration
Book of the Old Tang Dynasty (volume 190) and Biography of Li Bai (volume 140): He Zhangzhi saw the white and praised: "There are immortals in this heaven."
"New Tang Book" records: knowing the chapter and seeing its text, sighing: "Son, you are a fairy!"
From these two historical books, we can see how to evaluate Li Baishi as a "fairy". What is recorded in the Book of Old Tang Dynasty is mainly the image of Li Bai written by He. The Book of the New Tang Dynasty recorded an article about Li Bai. Neither of these two history books links Li Bai with "Poet Fairy".
This shows that people at that time did not call Li Bai "Poet Fairy", otherwise Bai Juyi, who was born later, would not dare to use the name "Poet Fairy" again. In the Book of the New Tang Dynasty compiled by Ouyang Xiu and others, Li Bai was not added as a poet to infer. Even in the Song Dynasty, Li Bai did not have the title of "Poet Fairy".
Li Bai's portrait illustration
Conclusion: When did the title "Poet Fairy" move from Bai Juyi to Li Bai? This is also a public case, the secret of which needs an exact answer from an authoritative person.