Li Bai. Poetry and the Tang Dynasty - Research Paper Example

?There only a few nations in the world that have retained their existence as what they were thousands of years ago. The literature, the art, the language and the poetry they have is their own, which their people have developed over time and China is one of them. The poetry in China reached its highest echelons of literary richness during the Tang Dynasty and Li Bai was one of the key figures at that time. He not only gave a diverse meaning to poetry but also supplemented it with his freestyle poetry. With more than 900 poems1 attributed to him and each poem being a distinct piece of art, the name of Li Bai is nothing less than a legend in the Chinese history of art. The birth of Li was at the point when poetry had the court sponsorship and was a mandatory element of every administrative and public education. At the time of his demise, the whole country was restless and under the turmoil of civil rebellion which had gravely effected the prosperity of a blooming nation and the tone of Li’s poetry. The poetry of Li Bai during the Tang Dynasty is the clear depiction of art, love, romance, loss, might, failure and gratitude. The rise and the fall of the Tang dynasty is an epic story of love, hatred, betrayal, rise and fall of one of the greatest civilizations of the world. The Tang dynasty was established by the Duke of Tang, Li Yuan, who was the victor of the civil war that ended in 617AD and claimed himself by the name of Emperor Gao-Zu. When he became the emperor of China, he not only reunited China but also ruled it efficiently from 617AD to 626AD2. The emperor was then disposed by his son Li Shimin in 626 which resulted in the blood feud among the sons to become the inheritor of the rule and eventually the winner was Li who became the next ruler known as the Emperor Taizong. The rule of the Emperor Taizong is one of the golden ages in the Tang dynasty who helped promote the art and literature across the country3. Through his reformist administration, and love for art and literature, he is still known as one of the greatest rulers of this great civilization. After his death in 649AD, his son Emperor Gaozong ascended the throne who proved to be a very weak ruler. The rule of the Emperor Gaozong was from 649 to 683 making it more than 34 year but the prime ruler during this era was Empress Wu Zetian. Empress Wu was the concubine of the emperor who used her influence and charm over the emperor and got the wife the emperor murdered and promoted herself as the empress4. The rule of Empress Wu is one of the cruelest eras in the history. She sent to exile and got murdered everyone in the entire country who she thought could be a hurdle in her rule as Lewis states: "Through the examination and her own personal choices, Empress Wu promoted several poets of humble birth who themselves became patrons of others from local elites or even poor families."5 However, with old age, the empress was not able to keep herself in control and was disposed in the favor of Emperor Zhongzong in 705AD. Emperor Zhongzong did not love for ling to rule and with his death in 710AD, the throne was taken control of by his spouse Empress Wei. The empress tried to rule like empress Wu but did not last long and was eventually disposed in 712AD and Emperor Xuanzong was placed on the throne. The rule of Emperor Xuanzong is the longest in the Tang dynasty, which lasted from 712AD to 756 AD making it just about 44 years. Emperor Xuanzong was an efficient ruler in the beginning of his career but later he was greatly influenced by the Taoist spirituality which shoed his weak administrative capability and giving rise to many insurgencies across the rule. Of the major insurgency was the An Lushan Rebellion, which also affected the later years Li Bai’s poetry. Not only this, the weakness of Emperor Xuanzong’s rule resulted in the rise of Islamic influence along the Central Asia who became the major influence holders of the silk route. After the Emperor Xuanzong fled the throne during the rebellion, Suzong became the next ruler of China. The rule of Emperor Suzong was the next major disaster because in his rule the eunuchs were assigned some of the vital positions in the government. In last nail in the coffin of the Tang dynasty was put by Zhu Wen who was the last military governor of this era. He proclaimed himself as the Emperor Taizu and set the base of Liang dynasty starting a new chapter in the history of China6. A mixture of turmoil and prosperity but still, as Fairbank states in the Cambridge History of China about the Tang dynasty established by Li Yuan that … he founded a new dynasty which was to endure for almost three centuries, and would rank alongside the Han as one of China's two golden ages of empire. 7 The Chinese history is filled with literary legends and poets that raised the Chinese art to the highest levels of richness and zenith. The Tang dynasty is also of those eras in the history of China that is named as the golden age for poetry8. It is during this time that every ruler was the patron and lover of art and romanticism. The poets during the Tang dynasty grew by leaps and bounds and the poets carved out astonishing crafts of words that beautified the vastness of the country, the boldness of the society and the valor of the armies. From the first ruler to the last, almost every emperor was either poet himself or had many poets as a part of his court. During the Tang dynasty, the classical poems that were composed usually had four characters in each line with every line properly rhymed. In addition, there were other types of poetry as well which included the lines with five or even seven characters, which were more in vogue. The emperor Wu of the Tang dynasty introduced another type of poetry, which was entirely novel in the Chinese poetry with every line rhyming with the last word and being a seven-character poem9. So great was the interest of the empress in poetry that she made it a necessary element of the civil service entrance exam and of the courses that were taught for official promotions. To comment on this, Lewis goes and states: “An emperor or minister in the Tang empire was expected to write poetry just as he was expected to write decrees, memorials, or essays on policy."10 The best development in the poetry that came during this era was that it was formalized by defining out the rules of poetry and standardizing the quality of poetry11. The poets during the Tang dynasty took the poetry to new levels of imagination and art. As Lewis states Tang writers produced the finest poetry in China’s great lyric tradition, which has remained the most prestigious literary genre throughout Chinese history.12 The poetry during this era can be divided into four different periods with each having a distinct style and mood, which showed the social and official conditions of China at that time. The epoch of the poetry in China however was reached during the second period of the age of poetry and it was at this time when Li Bai played the musical chords of romanticism, natural beauty, social and cultural conditions with his words13. Other famous poets that were the contemporaries of Li Bai were Tu Fu who is known as the sage of Tang poetry, Meng Hano-jan and Wang Wei. Two of the famous court poets of this age which were Ts'en Ts'an and Wei Ying-wu14. Not only these poets produced the most remarkable work in the history of China but the work of that age is still one of the most attractive poetic works of all times. Bol further goes on and claims about the Tang’s dedication to literature by saying: “By Tang times written texts were essential to learning, and specialists in text began to suppose that civilization began with writing.”15 Li Bai is not doubt one of the most sensational poets in the Chinese history of whom the work lives till this day and is loved by mullions and admired by billions. He was the major Chinese poet during the Tang dynasty and played an important role in the enrichment of the golden period of Chinese poetry. The great poets of the T'ang period …. the writing of poetry was a learned pastime, precious and formalistic, the T'ang poets brought to it genuine feeling.16 With hundreds of poems on a wide range of topics to his name and a major portion of the legendary “Three Hundred Tang Poems” devoted to his work clearly shows the sensational work that he did17. Li Bai was born in 701AD, which was the peak of the rule of Empress Wu, and therefore he opened his eyes in the age where poetry was the most important element of the society and had a clear importance in the royal circle18. The young Li Bai was rather interested in military and civil service more than poetry and but his failure to prove his mettle as a warrior despite being a good swordsman, he turned to poetry19. He spent most of his life wandering between cities, villages and wilderness and composing the poems what he saw and what he felt20. Unlike most of the wandering poets in history who wandered because of limited resources to fund their work and lives, Li Bai wandered because his wealth allowed him for it. He was even lucky enough to have good friends in the royalty who came to his help whenever he needed them21. There are many poems in the Li Bai’s work that are show the lavishness and the splendor of the royal courts and also showed his want for reputation and honor. His stay at Chang'an provided him many opportunities to develop acquaintances in the royal court where he had high esteem where he wrote a song as him memoir in a poem titled A Song Of Changgan My hair had hardly covered my forehead. I was picking flowers, paying by my door, When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums. We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan, Both of us young and happy-hearted.22 However his habit of remain drunk with wine made him to be sent away from the court. This made him realize that his ideals for a life and society were not coherent with the trends of the society and sensed his loneliness, which took his emotions hard. He now had understood the harshness of the society and elaborated his frustration in the poem Drinking Alone with the Moon in which he said: From a pot of wine among the flowers I drank alone. There was no one with me -- Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon To bring me my shadow and make us three. Alas, the moon was unable to drink And my shadow tagged me vacantly; But still for a while I had these friends To cheer me through the end of spring....23 Afterwards he remained a wanderer for his life and made nature and his feelings as the center of his poetry. In his poems, he praised beautiful landscapes and the vastness of the countryside and the colors that it bore24. He was in fact trying to free himself from the clutches of the materialistic urban society and sought peace in nature, which he depicts in his many poems including the poem In Spring, and his famed Ballads of Four Seasons. Nevertheless, his sense of nationalism and commitment to his people and soldiers was undaunted. At times of war and time of any civil disorder, he was the supporter of the army and his rightful emperors. His poem The Moon at the Fortified Pass resonates the feeling of a soldier that night when he is awake for the security of his people. He is wake while the people of his country sleep. Despite his drunkard nature, the masterpieces of poetry that he created with this intuition and imagination were the prime examples of classy literature25. Li Bai was not only a renowned and famous poet but also one of the greatest national poets of Chinese rule of that time. The Tang dynasty like other dynasties in the Chinese history was not much of stable dynasty because of rapid insurgencies across the country and political tussles between the states.26 In this regard, Li Bai had great concerns about these times of restlessness and respect for the soldiers and generals. He firmly believed that is were they who were the protectors of the rule, ruled and the ruler. To honor the brave defenders of the frontiers he composed many poems that depicted their bravery, valor and preyed for their success in wars. Some of the famous poems of Li Bai that reflect his feelings for the national heroes include the Song of the Frontiers and the Song of Ding, The Protector General27. It is indeed amazing that despite being drunk most of the times, the poetry of Li Bai nowhere seems to be incoherent and incomplete. Instead, it has focused on various real life feelings of the people which most of the sober are sometimes not able to understand which clearly shows that mental caliber of this great poet. In this poem A Farewell to Meng Haoran on his way to Yangzhou he maturely expresses the sight which he sees standing at the shore while his friend sails away in the following words You have left me behind, old friend, at the Yellow Crane Terrace, On your way to visit Yangzhou in the misty month of flowers; Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky, Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven28. His poems show such diversity of thoughts and expressions that makes even an expert critic dazzled by the maturity and the perfection of thoughts. Romanticism and his love for perfection along with the loneliness that he expresses clearly depict what the tang dynasty was going through his time. Though a golden period in the history of literature, art and poetry the reality of the harshness and life are not left apart in most of this work. He composed what he felt and what he saw. At one time when the country was prosperous and he wealthy, he rarely cared for anything except his addition to wine which he showed in many of his poems Bringing In The Wine29 Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite, And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink! ...To the old master, Cen, And the young scholar, Danqiu, Bring in the wine!30 However, in the later years of his life and with the An Lushan Rebellion gripping the major part of china, he was captured and put behind bars without wine. He was now not only penniless but also yearned to go back to the city he much loved, Changan. He then wrote a series of poems with the title Endless Yearning in which he showed how much he misses his city. With great imagination and word craft, he draws excellent images of the beauty of his city and explains how much he longs to go back as he writes I am endlessly yearning To be in Changan. ...Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well…31 In the final years of his life, Li Bai was not able to see the glory and the magnificence of his country that he much loved which caused great stress to him32. After his release from imprisonment, he initially retired to Jiangxi but did not let go of the wandering style life and poetry. Li Bai was a renowned personality in China and therefore when the new Chinese Emperor Diazong came to the throne he sent for Li Bai for being assigned a reputable government office but as the tradition goes, the imperial edict never reached him because he was already dead.33 The contemporary poets of Li Bai were so much in shock that they were not readily able to accept the demise of the poetic luminary. Some of the poets of the Tang Dynasty and afterwards even connoted Li Bai and his work to elegance and class. The work of Li Bai marked the supremacy of the Tang dynasty as the epochs of freestyle poetry which represented tradition, glorification and unmatched charm. Although Li Bai was also a very capable calligrapher but as a poet, he set out a path that many others to come in the later years trekked. Read More