Li Yi

Life

Li Yi was a kinsman of Chancellor Li Kui. His father is variously named Li Qiu (李虯/李虬) or Li Cun (李存), and his father-in-law Lu Shu (盧舒) or Lu Ji (盧集). When Liangzhou fell to the Tubo in 764, his family left their ancestral region and settled in Luoyang.

In the fourth year of the Dali era (769), Li Yi passed the jinshi examination and was appointed magistrate of Zheng County in Huazhou; two years later he passed the Fengjian Zhuwen examination and was promoted to registrar of Zheng County. In the fourth year of Jianzhong, he passed the Shupan Baxiu examination and became an Investigating Censor.

In the ninth year of Dali, he joined the staff of Zang Xirang, military governor of Weibei, and accompanied the army on a northern expedition for frontier defense. In the second year of Jianzhong (781), he moved to the staff of Li Huaiguang, military governor of Shuofang, and toured the northern frontier. From the first year of Zhenyuan (785) onward, he served successively on the staffs of Du Xiquan at Tiande, Zhang Xianfu at Binning, and Liu Ji at Youzhou, leaving the military establishments only in the sixteenth year of Zhenyuan; another account describes him as travelling through Yan and Zhao before Liu Ji recruited him as a staff officer at Youzhou.

His military-staff career is summarized in one account as lasting twenty-six years, while a preface attributed to him says that he had served in office for eighteen years, five of them amid the army. It also describes him taking up brush and writing in moments of military leisure, with his work arising from a resolute and impassioned spirit.

During the Yuanhe era he entered court service, successively holding the offices of Director of the Bureau of Criminal Reviews, Secretariat Drafter, Assistant Administrator of Henan, Vice Director of the Palace Library, and Academician of the Jixian Hall; he also served as Junior Companion of the Heir Apparent and as Palace Guest to the Heir Apparent, eventually reaching You Sanqi Changshi. Appointments whose dates are preserved include examiner of policy essays in Yuanhe 3 (808), Secretariat Drafter in Yuanhe 4 (809), Assistant Administrator of Henan in Yuanhe 5 (810), Vice Director of the Palace Library and Academician of the Jixian Hall in Yuanhe 7 (812), and You Sanqi Changshi in Yuanhe 15 (820).

In the first year of the Dahe era (827), he retired with the honorary title of Minister of Rites; his death is variously placed in 827 and 829. He was buried at Yanshi, while Henan is given as his place of death. His sons were Li Dang (李當), Li Chang (李敞), Li Chong (李崇), Li Yi (李奕), Li Yuan Yi (李元翊), and Li Tang (李棠).

Poetry

Li Yi won a poetic reputation early and was regarded as the equal of his kinsman Li He. Music masters competed to obtain his poems; some were turned into painted screens and others into song texts, and they circulated widely. One account places him among the Ten Great Poets of the Dali era.

His life and writing are commonly divided into three phases. Before he entered the military staffs, his youthful poetry was close in style to that of the “Ten Talents” and excelled in regulated pentasyllabic verse; representative poems include “喜見外弟又言別” and “竹窗聞風寄苗發司空曙.” During the military phase, which is described as lasting twenty-six years, he wrote chiefly frontier poetry, rich in subject matter and inward reflection, expressing the feelings of a soldier and depicting the border landscape. “塞下曲,” “夜上受降城聞笛,” and “從軍北征” are vigorous and impassioned examples of his seven-character quatrains, while the regulated poems “過五原胡兒飲馬泉” and “同崔邠登鸛雀樓” are marked by powerful momentum and broad settings. After he entered court service, his late poems more often lingered over scenes, sought immortality and the Dao, and pursued leisure; their achievement is judged lower than that of the military period.

His seven-character quatrains are condensed and suggestive, with a lasting resonance, and were highly esteemed by later readers. Hu Yinglin judged that, after the Kaiyuan era, Li Yi was the foremost poet of the form.

Associations and works

Li Yi exchanged poems and prose with Wu Yuanheng, Qi Ying, Cui Bin, Linghu Chu, Lu Lun, Sikong Shu, Miao Fa, Jia Dao, and others; poem titles also preserve his connections with Miao Fa, Sikong Shu, and Cui Bin.

A two-scroll collection, the Li Yi ji, also known as the Li Junyu ji, circulated. The Quan Tang shi preserves two scrolls of his poems, and the Quan Tang shi xu shi adds one further poem.