This is a Chinese name; the family name is Bai.

Bai Juyi or Po Chü-i (白居易)(772 - 846) was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. His poems are not cheerful, and were themed around his responsibilities as a governor of several small provinces to sympathesize with his people. Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western culture. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western culture. ... A family name, or surname, is the part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ... Events Pope Adrian I succeeds Pope Stephen IV. Adrian I turns to Charlemagne for support against king Desiderius of the Lombards. ... Events The Moors temporarily recapture León. ... Poets who wrote or write much of their poetry in the Chinese language. ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ...

Life

He was born in Xinzheng in a poor but scholarly family. At the age of ten he was sent away from his family to be educated near Chang'an. He passed the jinshi degree in 800. His official career was initially successful: he was a Member of the Hanlin Academy and Reminder of the Left from 807 until 815, when he was exiled for remonstrating too forcefully. His career resumed when he was made Prefect of Hangzhou (822-825) and then Suzhou (825-827). Xinzheng (新鄭) is a small city in the south of Henan province of China. ... Changan â–¶(?) (Simplified Chinese: 长安; Traditional Chinese: 長安; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chang-an) is the ancient capital of more than ten dynasties in China. ... The imperial examinations (Chinese: 科舉; Hanyu Pinyin: ) in dynastic China determined positions in the civil service based on merit and education, which promoted upward mobility among the population for centuries. ... Events December 25, Rome, coronation of Charles the Great (Charlemagne) as emperor by Pope Leo III. Celtic monks begin work on the Book of Kells on the Island of Iona. ... The Hanlin Academy (翰林院) was founded in China in the 8th century. ... Events After the death of Cuthred, king Coenwulf of Mercia takes control over Kent himself. ... Events An iconoclastic synod is held. ... The term prefecture (from the Latin Praefectura) indicates the office, seat, territorial circonscription of a Prefect; consequentally, like that word, is its applied in English in relation to actual Prefects, whose title is just that (or the forms it takes in other, especially Romance, languages), in the broadest sense in... Hangzhou (Chinese: 杭州; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hang-chou) is a sub-provincial city in China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. ... Events Abd-ar-rahman II becomes ruler of Umayyad Spain. ... Events Egbert of Wessex defeats Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellandun. ... Suzhou (Simplified Chinese: 苏州; Traditional Chinese: 蘇州; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Su-chou; sometimes seen transliterated as Su-chow, Suchow, or Soochow) is a famous city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Taihu in the province of Jiangsu, China. ... Events Egbert of Wessex defeats Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellandun. ... Events Succession of Pope Valentine, then Pope Gregory IV. Arabs invade Sicily. ...

Works

He wrote over 2,800 poems, which he had copied and distributed to ensure their survival. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...

He is most notable for the accessibility of his work. It is said that he would recite his poems to old women and rewrote until they could fully understand it. He tried to use simple language and direct themes. Two of his most famous works are the long narrative poems Song of Eternal Sorrow, which tells the story of Yang Guifei, and Song of the Pipa Player. Like Du Fu, he also had a strong sense of social responsibility, and he is also well-known for his satirical poems, such as The Elderly Charcoal Seller. Bai Juyi's accessibility made him extremely popular in his lifetime in both China and Japan, and he continues to be so today. In non-technical terms, no matter what the context (whether scientific, philosophical, legal, etc) a narrative is a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (per Walter Fisher). ... Yang Guifei (楊貴妃 Secondary-consort Yang) (June 1, 719 — July 15, 756), born Yang Yuhuan (楊玉環), was one of the Four Beauties of ancient China. ... A woman plays the pipa in the New York City Subways Times Square Station, 2004. ... Du Fu or Tu Fu (712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty. ...

External links and references

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Bai Juyi

• http://www.chinese-poems.com/bo.html
• http://www.philmultic.com/pipa/pipa_song.html
• Six Bai Juyi's poems included in 300 Selected Tang Poems, translated by Witter Bynner
• Nienhauser, William H (ed.). The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Indiana University Press 1986. ISBN 0253329833

Image File history File links Wikiquote-logo-en. ... Wikiquote logo Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... Harold Witter Bynner (1881 – 1968) was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear. ...

References

• A History of World Societies Fourth Edition by McKay Hill Buckler. Copyright Houghton Mifflin 1999. Pg. 330