Liu Yuxi (刘禹锡), 772-842 A.D., was a native of Hebei and later moved to Luoyang. In 91 A.D., Liu Yuxi took part in the political reforms of Wang Shuwen’s group with Liu Zongyuan. After the failure of the reforms, Liu Yuxi was relegated to the post of Secretary of Lanzhou (present-day Changde, Hunan Province), and then moved to Lianzhou to become the Assassin of Lianzhou. After Pei Du’s strong recommendation, he was appointed as the guest of the Prince, plus the inspection of the Ministry of Rites, known as Liu Bin Gui. He was a man of integrity and backbone. Although he was deposed for a long time, he never gave up his political ideals and changed his position.
Liu Yuxi was a progressive politician and thinker in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, as well as a poet with unique achievements in this period. In his compositions, there is no lack of poems reflecting current affairs and the plight of the people. Artistically, he was able to inherit the excellent literary heritage of his predecessors, and also formed his own unique artistic style by absorbing useful nutrients from folk literature. His poems have a bright and lively language, loud and harmonious rhythms, and an eloquent style, which was highly regarded by the people of the time, and he was honored as the “Master of Poetry”.
Literary Achievements:
Liu Yuxi did not become famous only for his poems, but ultimately he is known primarily as a poet. After the development of Tang poetry into the Middle Tang, Han poetry and Bai poetry stood side by side, with the former being strange and bold, and the latter being popular and simple, and each leading the way, driving a new trend in the evolution of poetry. Liu Yuxi had a deep friendship with Han Yu and Bai Juyi, and often sang and exchanged poems with them. However, what is remarkable is that he always maintained his own unique artistic personality, was not swayed by the current trend, and finally took a different path between the two, coming out with a new and unique way. In the history of poetry, he wrote a colorful chapter.
Liu Yuxi’s most distinctive poems are the folk songs, political satirical poems, historical poems, and the new poetic genre of lyrics. During the long years of his banishment to a faraway state, he consciously followed the example of Qu Yuan, learned the spirit of the great poet in composing the Nine Songs, and drew the essence from the folk ballads and eulogies, thus creating a new poetic style combining the poetry of the literati and the folk songs. His works are healthy and upward thinking, simple and unadorned language, rich and varied methods of expression, and even with a strong local flavor, truly realizing the elegance and popularity. His political satirical poems often use the technique of simile, using objects to satirize, saying this and the other, and putting sharpness into euphemism, while at the same time seizing the most typical significance and ironic meaning of things to develop, and conveying one’s own viewpoints and attitudes through the detailed descriptions. As a condemned and banished minister, Liu Yuxi was not able to express his indignation directly, so he skillfully took the approach of reciting history and reminiscing about the past, borrowing the past to speak of the present, and integrating many factors such as worrying about the country and feeling the time, denying the characters, and expressing his embraces into his own poetry, which greatly broadened and elevated the ideological horizon of the poems of reciting history.
Poetry can be said to be the concentrated reflection of the poet’s life experience. As an outstanding thinker, Liu Yuxi spent his whole life inquiring into the true meaning of life. During his lifetime, he was on a par with Bai Juyi, known as “Liu Bai”, who once called him “the great poet”. Indeed, his poetic style is bold, magnificent and upward, full of romantic and majestic imagination and optimism. More importantly, he wrote poems like a human being, and in his poems, he also set up an image of an ideal personality of Dongdao, self-improvement, integrity and nobility, whose glory is enough to follow his predecessors and inspire the future generations. More than 800 of his poems, rich in content, have been handed down from generation to generation as treasures of Chinese culture.
