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The Life and Times of Po Chu-I 772-846 A.D.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
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April 1, 2019
I confess when I bought this book I never thought I would really read it; it sat neglected on my shelves for years. It was only while looking for some of Bai Juyi's poetry that I discovered it and thought it worth flipping through.
Big wrong first impression. This is one of the best books I have ever read on Tang Dynasty China. How could I have doubted that Arthur Waley wouldn't write a brilliant book about one of China's most important early poets--a poet whose poetry survived (unlike DuFu's where we have only a tiny fraction of his life's work), because it was so loved that his poems were printed and sold on slips of paper in the marketplace, collected in volumes and stored in Buddhist monasteries, and carried back to Japan by visiting Japanese monks. Amongst the dozens of books I have read on the Tang (618-907), many of which had such titles as Daily Life in the Tang, this is the the best. If you want to really know what life was like in this period, read this book and walk the streets, study for the examinations, roam the fields and hills, serve under good and bad administrators, make friends, lose friends, try to avoid the political intrigues and being exiled to the poisonous southern regions, dabble in Daoist breathing practices, drink a lot of wine, and learn how to survive with Bai Juyi. Reading Waley's life of Bai Juyi is like listening to a wonderful story-teller (who occasionally stops mid-story to give you his points of view or suspicions before continuing) in the midst of a Tang village green. I would be so bold as to say that readers of this book will leave with a better understanding of the life of a literati during the Tang than they would having taken a University course on the subject.
An example explaining Bai's understanding of poetry (p 108): "Po [this is an alternative to the name Bai, by which this poet is better known today]... believed that in antiquity, officers went round collecting the songs that people were singing. In these songs were expressed directly or allegorically the feelings of the people about their rulers. They vented their grievances or (much more rarely) expressed their satisfaction. Such songs, it was believed, were gathered together by Confucius, and the collection made by him is the Book of Songs as we know it to-day. This was the Golden Age of poetry, when every poem had a moral or political meaning, and could be used by the rulers of China to guide them in their task. But soon decadence set in. Poetry became the vehicle of individual rather than of social grievances, and at the same time the true art of allegory disappeared. There arose a generation of poets who when, for example, they wrote about 'rivers and hills' really meant rivers and hills and were not allegorically satirizing some wicked Minister or wanton Court favourite. Finally, in the sixth century A.D., poetry became mere 'sporting with wind and snow, toying with grasses and flowers' and nothing was aimed at but pretty verbal effects. There was at first, says Po, no improvement under the Tang dynasty..." Don't you want to know how he continues? I did, and this is why I can write that this book is a true page-turner.
Moreover, Bai Juyi lived in exciting times. The days of the Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved consort Yang Guifei are past, but the fallout and political turmoil of the Lu Shan rebellion is in full swing and readers will follow how the swing of court favoritism or dismissal really played out in peoples' lives. When our hero poet is dismissed in disgrace, we trudge along with him to his new post in a village so rural its roads aren't even wide enough to allow him use of the carriage he is entitled to.
When Bai Juyi (p 143) recalls a friend's poetry, he reminds us of his [Han Yu's] 'Warnings to Old Men: 'Don't start thinking you have not got enough to live on or take it into your head that you ought to try and get back to office...if you are hale and hearty, don't keep on boasting about it; and finally, don't tell interminable stories.'"
My sole criticism is that reprints should replace all the Wade-Giles names with today's Pinyin, and relegate the Wade Giles (with the original Chinese characters) to foot or endnotes. Stopping to try and compute some of the names into a more familiar Pinyin made for irritating interruptions.
On the other hand, none of Waley's interruptions are irritating but delightful side stories ("In order to give some idea of what was going on in the world during Po's last years of life I have made a considerable digression, and carried the story well beyond the time of his illness and partial recovery. We can now go back to his personal affairs ...."
But most importantly, although you may have heard of and read Bai Juyi's poetry, the story of his life and friends will give you a true appreciation of his poetry. And Waley saves one of the best bits of arcane information for the very end as I will here. For those of you who have read the Japanese classic The Tale of Genji "The numerous references to Chinese poetry are all to poems either by Po or by his friends" ... the Ballads that Lady Murasaki "reads with the Empress, to whom she was Lady-in-Waiting, were those contained in chapters three and four of Po Chu-i's Works as we have them today" (p 213).
Big wrong first impression. This is one of the best books I have ever read on Tang Dynasty China. How could I have doubted that Arthur Waley wouldn't write a brilliant book about one of China's most important early poets--a poet whose poetry survived (unlike DuFu's where we have only a tiny fraction of his life's work), because it was so loved that his poems were printed and sold on slips of paper in the marketplace, collected in volumes and stored in Buddhist monasteries, and carried back to Japan by visiting Japanese monks. Amongst the dozens of books I have read on the Tang (618-907), many of which had such titles as Daily Life in the Tang, this is the the best. If you want to really know what life was like in this period, read this book and walk the streets, study for the examinations, roam the fields and hills, serve under good and bad administrators, make friends, lose friends, try to avoid the political intrigues and being exiled to the poisonous southern regions, dabble in Daoist breathing practices, drink a lot of wine, and learn how to survive with Bai Juyi. Reading Waley's life of Bai Juyi is like listening to a wonderful story-teller (who occasionally stops mid-story to give you his points of view or suspicions before continuing) in the midst of a Tang village green. I would be so bold as to say that readers of this book will leave with a better understanding of the life of a literati during the Tang than they would having taken a University course on the subject.
An example explaining Bai's understanding of poetry (p 108): "Po [this is an alternative to the name Bai, by which this poet is better known today]... believed that in antiquity, officers went round collecting the songs that people were singing. In these songs were expressed directly or allegorically the feelings of the people about their rulers. They vented their grievances or (much more rarely) expressed their satisfaction. Such songs, it was believed, were gathered together by Confucius, and the collection made by him is the Book of Songs as we know it to-day. This was the Golden Age of poetry, when every poem had a moral or political meaning, and could be used by the rulers of China to guide them in their task. But soon decadence set in. Poetry became the vehicle of individual rather than of social grievances, and at the same time the true art of allegory disappeared. There arose a generation of poets who when, for example, they wrote about 'rivers and hills' really meant rivers and hills and were not allegorically satirizing some wicked Minister or wanton Court favourite. Finally, in the sixth century A.D., poetry became mere 'sporting with wind and snow, toying with grasses and flowers' and nothing was aimed at but pretty verbal effects. There was at first, says Po, no improvement under the Tang dynasty..." Don't you want to know how he continues? I did, and this is why I can write that this book is a true page-turner.
Moreover, Bai Juyi lived in exciting times. The days of the Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved consort Yang Guifei are past, but the fallout and political turmoil of the Lu Shan rebellion is in full swing and readers will follow how the swing of court favoritism or dismissal really played out in peoples' lives. When our hero poet is dismissed in disgrace, we trudge along with him to his new post in a village so rural its roads aren't even wide enough to allow him use of the carriage he is entitled to.
When Bai Juyi (p 143) recalls a friend's poetry, he reminds us of his [Han Yu's] 'Warnings to Old Men: 'Don't start thinking you have not got enough to live on or take it into your head that you ought to try and get back to office...if you are hale and hearty, don't keep on boasting about it; and finally, don't tell interminable stories.'"
My sole criticism is that reprints should replace all the Wade-Giles names with today's Pinyin, and relegate the Wade Giles (with the original Chinese characters) to foot or endnotes. Stopping to try and compute some of the names into a more familiar Pinyin made for irritating interruptions.
On the other hand, none of Waley's interruptions are irritating but delightful side stories ("In order to give some idea of what was going on in the world during Po's last years of life I have made a considerable digression, and carried the story well beyond the time of his illness and partial recovery. We can now go back to his personal affairs ...."
But most importantly, although you may have heard of and read Bai Juyi's poetry, the story of his life and friends will give you a true appreciation of his poetry. And Waley saves one of the best bits of arcane information for the very end as I will here. For those of you who have read the Japanese classic The Tale of Genji "The numerous references to Chinese poetry are all to poems either by Po or by his friends" ... the Ballads that Lady Murasaki "reads with the Empress, to whom she was Lady-in-Waiting, were those contained in chapters three and four of Po Chu-i's Works as we have them today" (p 213).
September 24, 2019
A short but engrossing look into the life of one of China's great poets and court life in the Tang dynasty.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews