Collected Poems
composition: secureauthorship: secure
A poet who tested his drafts for plainness writes verse simple enough to travel, and becomes the most widely read Chinese poet of his century in Japan and Korea as well as at home.
- deliberate plainness pursued as a poetic principle
- poetry defended as an instrument of social criticism
- the poet curating and arranging his own collected works
- circulation across East Asia within the author's lifetime
Bai Juyi wrote nearly three thousand poems and organised his own collected works, an unusual act of self-curation. He valued directness, held that poetry should serve social criticism, and wrote a group of new ballads attacking官 abuses, conscription and the burdens on the poor. His long narrative poems on the emperor's love for Yang Guifei and on a chance encounter with a musician on the river became the most memorised poems in East Asia, and his work reached Japan within his lifetime.
Commentary
Readers' notes on this work. No account needed - be scholarly, or at least civil.
Loading commentary…