Bai Juyi and the New Yuefu Movement

Centering my focus on a detailed translation of the poetry of Bai Juyi's New Yuefu, I will reconstruct the poet's world on the foundation of political allegory found within his verse. Bai Juyi once said that there are four elements that compose poetry as a whole: Likened to a blossoming fruit tree, the root of poetry is in its emotions, its branches in its wording, its flowers in its rhyme and voice, and lastly its final culmination in the fruits of its meaning. Moreover, I will carefully research Bai Juyi's correspondence with other members of the New Yuefu Movement such as Yuan Zhen. As a whole, the aim of this thesis is to illuminate what I view to be Bai Juyi's own unique brand of poetic theory as well as the sociological philosophy behind its creation.