6: The Poet Transcendent, Banished from Heaven

In the middle of his life, the poet Li Bai, also known in the West as Li Po or Li Bo (both inexact reproductions of an 'old style' Mandarin) and to sinologists as Lǐ Bhæk (a reconstruction of the actual contemporary pronunciation of his name), met the famous elder poet He Zhizhang in the Daoist Temple of the Violet Pole, in modern-day Shandong. Learning that such a literary eminence was present, Li Bai introduced himself and presented several of his latest poems. He Zhizhang read at first slowly, then eyes sliding down the paper, then looked up in wonderment. “Can you be the Jin Star Taibai(1), descended from Heaven?" Thus did Li Bai become known as "the banished immortal" (谪仙), and later, the "Poet Transcendent" (诗仙).

Likely born in modern-day Kyrgyzstan, in a town then known as Suiye and within the sphere of influence of the Tang Empire, Li Bai grew up in the Sichuan town of Qinglian and read widely as a child, including many Daoist and astrological texts of a mystical bent. His association with the hermetic intellectual tradition, in particular its Daoist elements, prompted him to choose for his own "pseudonym" the name "Retired Scholar of Qinglian" (青莲居士), after the town where he grew up. As a boy and young man, he is said to have practiced martial arts, and bragged of his skill with a sword. In later years, after traveling the length and breadth of the empire, his wandering and youthful combats earned him the name "the Poet Knight-errant" (诗侠).

In casual description of Tang poetry, or of Chinese poetry generally, Li Bai and Du Fu are known as the greatest Chinese poets of any era, most commonly called the Poets Transcendent and Sage, respectively (诗仙 and 诗圣). Though the trajectories of their careers were quite different, they met twice and thought highly of each other, the younger Du Fu especially thinking enormously of Li Bai. In one poem, Du Fu placed Li Bai among other great poets of the age as one of the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup" (饮中八仙).

During the Tang, as for much of Chinese history, an educated man possessed many names beyond his surname. He was born with a "milk name" (乳名) given by his parents, acquired nicknames from his friends, was given a "courtesy name" (字) upon maturity, chose for himself a "pseudonym" (号) and possibly also a pen name, and if he had particular status, may have been given one or more additional nicknames and or posthumous names. Li Bai had more names than even the average Tang gentleman, but as he has faded into history they have only grown in number.

(1) The Jin Star (金星), also called Taibai (太白), refers to Venus. He Zhizhang's comment makes even more sense given that Li Bai's courtesy name was Taibai, chosen presumably for its connection with the same star.