Li Bai and Du Fu were the two great poets at the highest peaks of the history of Chinese poetry . Shoulder to shoulder they sent off perpetual light like Gemini in space , Li Bai was called the “celestial poet” . He was a genius
and wrote wonderful poems .He was a Romanticist . In his poems , extraordinary imagination , bold exaggeration , beautiful dictions and sonorous rhythms blend miraculously without apparent effort , reaching a superlative level . The following are some examples :
白发三千丈，
缘愁似个长。
White hair drifts three-thousand “zhang”,
Because my anxiety lingers so long.
(Note:1 zhang = 3.3 meters )
大道如青在， 我独不得出。
Road open as sky , Lonely I cannot go out .
弃我去者，昨日之日不可留；
乱我心者，今日之日多烦扰。
Leaving me , the day of yesterday would not stay on .
Troubling my mind , the day of today filled up with worries .
举杯邀明月，
对影成三人。
I hold out the wine cup to invite the moon ,
And I face my shadow . Together we are three persons .
All these verses are creations of a genius , drawing the extreme aesthetic appreciation from the readers .
The works of Li Bai were powerful and unrestrained , with sentiments surging like a swift current . In contrast , the works of Du Fu , who lived a little later , were of a quite different style . His works are depressive and marked by a modulatory melody like undulating waves , suitable for reading again and again . Cited below are parts of a famous poem of his :
登岳阳楼
昔闻洞庭水，
今上岳阳楼。
……
亲朋无一字，
老病有孤舟。
……
戎马关山北，
凭轩涕泗流。
Ascending Yueyang Tower
I heard about the waterscape of Dongting lake long age .
Now I ascend Yueyang Tower to watch it .
….
I have got no word from relatives and friends .
Left in a lone boat , I am aged and sick .
….
Recalling my military life in north borderland ,
Against the window , my tears flow along my cheeks .
. Viewing the vast expanse of the lake water , Du Fu became very sentimental . His sad life experience and concern for relatives and friends , the nation and the people , came to his mind simultaneously . As all the sentiments are going to burst he just added . “Recalling my military life in north borderland . Against the window , my tears flow along my cheeks”. Just like the sluice gate is opened slightly, and a current of water rushes out , he reveled his immeasurably deep sentiments . Du Fu was called the “saint poet”, because his depressive , meticulous literary style reached the level of perfection . His works were considered as the classics of realism .
