The garden as shelter in Bai Juyi’s late poetry

Abstract

Bai Juyi was one of the best known Chinese poets, who lived the life of a typical literatus. He achieved wealth, fame and high status in social life, but he could also experience the dark side of being a servant of the imperial court. This essay attempts to provide a synthesis of Bai Juyi’s late poetry. These poems summarize his thoughts about hermitage, and also express his feelings and judgement about phenomena of his time and society. His individual choice and his balancing between service and inner peace resulted in a middle way resolution of hermitage. Poems written about his property in Luoyang make it clear that his desire to withdraw from politics was elementary for him in his late years, and also prove that his garden was not only a property that delighted
him but also an intermediary through which he could discover new parts of his own personality.