Li Bai as an Asian Poet - Essay Example

s the assignment was due Li Bai There is uniqueness in every poet’s expression of thoughts, and this is what makes them an unparalleled genius in their literary field. Among many of the Asian poets, Li Bai or Li Po have created an exceptional place in Chinese literature mainly because of his excellent poetic vision and skills. Li Bai was active during the reign of Tang dynasty and he was called the ‘Poet Immortal’ and gained prompt recognition during and after his time-period. Most of his poems are known to have high levels of poetic sense, illustrating the linguistic, rhythmic, semantic, and stylistic aspects of poetry through the themes of nature, wine, women, and more. Lis poetry has survived through the years and has gained imperishable popularity not only in China, but also developed a good influence in the Western world through translations. This discussion will be about the literary components and illustrations of Li Bai’s poems, particularly focusing on the way he has handled each of his poems, depicting its theme and primary images. The aesthetic sense in his poetic descriptions along with his recurring theme of nature is discussed in detail. Li Bai was born in Sichuan province, in what is now Central Asia, in 701 A.D. In his early years, he led a carefree life as an itinerant wandering throughout China with his companion and co-poet, Du Fu. Living during the mid-Tang Dynasty, which was called the ‘Golden Age of China’, he was influenced by Taoist thoughts. He wished of becoming an official in the dynasty but his family heritage did not provide enough opportunities for it. However, in 742 A. D., he was introduced to the emperor Xuanzong, as a fabled carouser who fascinated the public and aristocrats through his poetic skills. Even though he had little academic knowledge, he was appointed to the Hanlin academy by the Emperor. As a prestigious poet to the ruler, he settled with the Emperor making poetry for him and the academy. However, the revolt, which occurred soon after his elevation, exiled him out of the position. Being a superfluous imaginative poet, his death was also romanticized by a fable in which his attempt to catch the moon’s light in a river led to his drowning. But, actually he is believed to have died because of his excessive drinking. Li Bai was indeed a legendary poet, with fanciful thoughts and inimitable adeptness in poetry skills. His poems covered a wide spectrum of human emotions and life with in-depth expressions through powerful language delivery. He was indeed a prominent figure in Chinese poetry world who took the classic Chinese poetry to greater heights. He was influenced by random thoughts and made the best out of it. Most of his poems used nature and its beauty as an inspiration to reflect his Taoist ideas. His poems focused on the common life of the people as well as his own living. His poems were of varied niche, celebrating friendship, love, nature, women, solitude, passage of time, and joy of drinking. His fables of drunkenness and chivalry demonstrate his life and dreams shredded with imagination. His descriptions of imagination were detailed with shamanic overtones, contemporary events, and timeless poetic moments. His poetry mostly illustrated the social imagery of the then time-period, reflecting the social events and people’s life during that particular time. For instance, his early poems that were written in the context of the ‘Golden Age’ manifested the internal peace and prosperity of the nation and its people. His poems flourished generously during this period as the emperor actively promoted and participated in arts. On the other hand, when the country was devastated by war and famine in the later years, his poems took a new tragic tone and style, depicting the catastrophic losses and people’s struggle in quelling these disorders. “He was torn between escaping to the mountains and confronting the political situation; therefore his poetic style captures the nuances of human experience of life and friendship during the wartime” (Hsieh 21). His poems written during these times emphasized his Taoist thoughts of returning to nature and living a life of a recluse. For example, the poem titled “Hard Road”, written during his hard times, focused on his wish for a secluded life with nature but was not able to pursue it due to various reasons. “I want to cross the Yellow River, but ice blocks my way; I want to climb Mount Taihang, but snow fills the sky. In idleness I drop a hook into the azure creek; suddenly I’m back in my boat, dreaming of distant places” (qtd. in Waters et al). It also indicated the social upheaval during the Tang dynasty when the kingdom was caught in a civil war. The characteristics of his poems included creative usage of old styles of poetry along with reworking of the traditional themes. Most of his poems demonstrated an air of fun, fantasy, and hyperbole in a casual and spontaneous usage of the art of versification. His poems satirized the world of hypocrisy and fawning, which is particularly shown by his rapport and love for nature. Some of his poem’s themes are also focused on women, depicting their solitude, loneliness, and abandonment. As above-mentioned, his poems were associated with Taoism, which is reflected through his poems’ expression of the wonders of nature as well as its spontaneous tone in showing sentiments. However, apart from the Taoist aesthetics, his poems also expressed a form known as the gufeng, which reflected more of Confucian values both in its tone and moralizing style. His poetry writing style changed the norm of Chinese traditional poetry, and that can be attributed to his free style writing with a clear lyric tone. His tone of simplicity acquired from spontaneous flow of words created an intense sense of language flow and fluency to his poems. However, this trait seems to get lost in translation and that is why his poetry exerts a very good fluency only when pronounced in Chinese language. Being a wanderer in the vast lands of China, he used nature as an inspirational subject in most of his poems. Various elements of nature such as moon, lake, mountains, seasons, night and day, and so on were used to ‘strike’ the readers with deep emotions and imagination. For example, in his work, “Thoughts on a Still Night”, he uses the still frosty night and the moon to create the mood of isolation for expressing his loneliness of being away from home. The moon has been symbolized with various meanings in Chinese literature, and here Li Bai represents moon’s fullness with the reunification of his family. Moreover, the imagery of ‘frost’ in the poem is used to convey the poet’s homesickness. “So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed -- Could there have been a frost already? Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight. Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home” (qtd. in Ward 62). This poem reveals the strong influence of ‘imagism’ in his poems, which is accompanied with poignancy and free-spirit style writing. Moreover, the poet addressed his emotions and feelings in a rhythmic tone while using the words of each line. That is, the last word of each line in the poem has a higher pitched tone while the first two words go together with the following three, making it rhythmic. This is how the poet used the sound of his poem to complement the thought process, which showed the confliction of emotions inside him to the readers. Li used rhythmic aspects of poetry to maintain the meaning of his verses as well as to match the flow of its language. He doubtlessly expressed the shift of thoughts and feelings in his poems with respect to the syllables and rhythms. That is, he used long syllables to express saddening emotions of distance, space, and time. On the other hand, he used short lines and fast rhythms to manifest eagerness or zeal. He illustrated his poems’ subject using the imagery rather than being objective like the other Chinese poets. “Li Bai is subjective in a way that every object he refers to in his poetry is always used to project his own feelings and bring his own mood to the forefront” (Gouda 5). This could be evident through many of his poems where the imagery is vague but delivers the emotions rightly. To sum up, it is evident that the Li handled the primary images in his works effectively to illustrate the feel and emotions of his subject. Since most of his poems use the theme of nature, his ‘imagery’ takes the form of known objects and very well reflects the mood of the author. The tones and rhythms in Li’s poems coordinate with the emotions of the poem and thus illustrate the poet’s feelings rightly in accordance with the situation. Also, the poem’s free-flowing language evokes the mood of the readers, creating a tranquil tone for the poem. Moreover, his simplicity and free style of writing elicits the readers’ emotions, delivering a deeper connotation with the subject matter. Works Cited Gouda, Sayed. “The Rhythmic and Semantic Correlation in Li Bai’s Poetry: A Manifestation of His Poetic Genius.” City University of Hong Kong, n. d. Web. 25 March 2015. Hsieh, Ching-Hsuan Lily. Chinese Poetry of Li Po set by Four Twentieth Century British Composer: Bantock, Warlock, Bliss, and Lambert. The Ohio State University, 2004. Ward, Jean Elizabeth. Li Bai: An Homage To. Lulu.com, 2008. Waters, Georffrey, Michael Farman, David Lunde and Jerome Seaton. 300 Tang Poems. White Pine Press, 2011. Read More