His poetic theory is of progressive significance for urging poets to face up to reality and care about people's livelihood. However, overemphasizing the subordination of poetry creation to the needs of real politics will inevitably constrain the artistic creation and style diversification of poetry.
He once divided his poems into four categories: satirical poems, leisurely poems, sentimental poems and miscellaneous poems.
Leisure poems and allegorical poems are two kinds of poems that Bai Juyi pays special attention to. Both of them are realistic, vulgar and thrifty, but they are quite different in content and mood.
Irony poems aim at "supporting the two", which are closely related to social politics and write more about lofty sentiments and excitement;
Leisure poems are meant to be "exclusive", "content with harmony, and give play to one's temperament" (Nine Books of Yuyuan), thus showing an indifferent, peaceful and leisurely state of mind.
Among them, allegorical poems are the most valuable, and he spoke highly of them, claiming that such poems are "helpful"
Theme concentration is one of the artistic features of Bai Juyi's satirical poems. He usually only chooses the most typical thing, highlighting a theme, "a sad thing", and the theme is very clear. In order to convey the theme to readers more clearly, you can add a small preface under the title of the poem to indicate the theme, or "show your will" to highlight the theme. Secondly, the artistic features of Bai poetry are also reflected in the portrayal of characters. He can grasp the characteristics of the characters and draw the characters vividly by line drawing. However, the poetry of Bai poetry is not simple, and he often reposes the meaning with simple sentences, which has achieved amazing artistic effects. The poem "Light Fat" describes the mental outlook of ministers, doctors and generals attending the meeting, as well as the richness of wine and food on the table, but the conclusion is: "There is a drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and people in Quzhou eat people." What a tragic scene this is.
Bai Juyi's leisurely poems have a great influence on later generations. His simple language style and indifferent and leisurely mood have been praised repeatedly. However, in contrast, the "leisure" thought of retiring from politics and being content with peace, and the attitude of returning to Buddhism and imitating Tao Yuanming in these poems have far-reaching influence because they are more in line with the psychology of later literati.
For example, Bai Juyi said, "If you fight for two snail horns, you'll get a dime a dozen" (No.7 of Let's Drink Seven Songs), "If you fight for the snail horns, I'll send the body in the firelight of the stone" (No.2 of Drink Five Songs) and "I'll know what happened to the snail horns later" (No.8 of Wu Zeng's Can Change My Diet). That is to say, on the basis of the names given by the Song people, "the names of drunkards, pedants and Dongpo all come from Bai Letian's poems" (Gong Yizheng's "Notes on Mustard Seeds"). Zhou Bida, a poet in the Song Dynasty, pointed out: "Su Wenzhong, a loyal minister in this dynasty, did not pay much attention to permission, only loved Lotte and wrote poems many times. Gage's articles are all about words, but they are honest and generous, outspoken, full of words, affectionate with people and indifferent to things. Living in Huangzhou, the first name is Dongpo, and it must have started from Lotte Zhongzhou. " (Poems of Erlaotang) All these show the influence track of Bai Juyi and his poems.