Bai Juyi

Also known as Zi Letian · Hao Xiang Shan Ju Shi · Bai Letian · Bai Fu

Bai Juyi, courtesy name Letian and late in life the Lay Recluse of Xiangshan, was born in Xinzheng, Henan, to a family of Taiyuan origin. He passed the jinshi examination in 800, wrote the 'Song of Everlasting Sorrow' in 806 while a county sheriff, and as Hanlin academician and Reminder of the Left composed fifty 'New Music Bureau' ballads and ten 'Songs of Qin'. In 815 he urged the swift arrest of the assassins of the chief minister Wu Yuanheng and was demoted to marshal of Jiangzhou, where he wrote the 'Lute Song' the next year; his 'Letter to Yuan Jiu' argues that poems should address real events. In the 820s he governed Hangzhou, building a lake embankment for irrigation, and Suzhou. He retired as president of the Ministry of Justice, lived in Luoyang and died in 846. Yuan Zhen edited his *Collected Works of the Changqing Era* (*Baishi Changqing ji*) and wrote in the preface that his poems were copied on the walls of palaces, temples and post stations.