The rise of the Yuanbai School of Poetry

From a theoretical perspective, Bai Juyi inherited the Confucian poetic theory tradition of "combining beauty and thorns" and put forward the idea that "articles are written together to suit the time, and poems are written together to suit events." In "Mei thorn" The "thorn" is highlighted in the poem, emphasizing the function of poetry in criticizing political society. Correspondingly, he believed that poetry should be written in such a way that "the words should be clear and precise, the words straight and clear, the things factual and practical, and the style smooth and generous." Although this idea had a decisive and positive influence on the formation of his "shallow cut" poetic style, it also brought serious limitations to his poetry creation. He overemphasized that poetry creation should be "in line with the times" - "to make up for the time gap", and regarded serving feudal rule as the only function of poetry, but often ignored the role of poetry in reflecting real life and expressing personal emotions in many aspects; he He overemphasizes "truthfulness" and often mixes the truth of art with the truth of life; he overemphasizes "straightforwardness" and "smoothness" and often denies the diversity of poetry's artistic styles and techniques. These cognitive limitations are most prominently reflected in his negative evaluation of the romantic poetry tradition from Qu Yuan to Li Bai. Therefore, we say that when examining Bai Juyi's creative theory, there are also "gains" and "losses".