THE LIVING STYLE OF “WALKING WITH ILLNESS” IN BAI JUYI’S PULMONARY DISEASES WRITINGS

Abstract

Pulmonary Disease has become a hot topic since Covid-19 attacked in 2019. Back to Tang Dynasty, Pulmonary Diseases were common in literati field. Poets used characteristics of the “lungs” that manage the energy and store spirit to reveal their true feelings. On the other hand, the lungs are “delicate” and “the only inner organ that is connecting to the outside by the nostril”, which gets infected by the virus the easiest. It reflected literati’s ups and downs in their careers, so as to express their sorrows and painful sentiments. Therefore, Pulmonary Diseases has become a “literati disease” to convey poets’ original emotions and expressed their unfinished achievements. Pulmonary Disease was one of the diseases that Bai Juyi was suffered for. During expatriation to Jiangzhou, pulmonary disease became the illness root due to the unfavorable climate and the invasion of cold pathogens. Later, traveling to Suzhou and Hangzhou also aggravated the disease. For Bai Juyi, Pulmonary Disease is not only a state of life, also a writing object that expressed specific emotions. Through the symptoms of “cough” and “thirst” from pulmonary disease, he revealed the hunger and cold disorders, also the deprivation of life when he was banished from the court. Also, he presented calm and adapting manner when he was suffering for the disease, which shaped his writing features with full of self-disposition. These features were transformed from the energy and store spirit in lungs. Furthermore, Bai Juyi showed his relaxing manner and leisure mind even he had the “thirst” of “desire of alcohol” which healed the mental emotions but hurt the physical lungs. Bai Juyi was entangled with pulmonary disease for half of his life, but he lived until seventy-five years old. To show the world about his living style of “walking with the illness” and “prolonging life with the disease”, his writings exuded peaceful and elegant with spontaneity.