Pilu's Partner

Pilu's partner "Pi Lu" is the nickname of Pi Rixiu and Lu Guimeng, two writers of the late Tang Dynasty. They were named after the two frequently sang poems in Suzhou and co-edited "Songling Collection". They were famous partners in the literary history of the Tang Dynasty. Pi Rixiu was a native of Jingling, Fuzhou, and had served as the governor of Suzhou. Lu Guimeng was a native of Suzhou. The two had close contacts, and their cooperation mainly focused on reciprocal couplets, with themes covering poetry, landscapes, and social allegory. In terms of literary achievements, in terms of poetry, Pi Rixiu's "Ten Pieces of Zheng Yuefu" inherited the tradition of the New Yuefu and paid attention to people's livelihood, and Lu Guimeng's "Nine Poems of Miscellaneous Satires" pointed out the current ills. However, the harmonious poems they sang were often ridiculed as "entertaining with pen and ink" because they pursued dangers and remoteness and used long parallelism and parallelism. The prose sketches have made outstanding achievements. Lu Xun praised them as "the brilliance and sharpness in the muddy pond" in the late Tang Dynasty. Pi Rixiu emphasized the function of literature in "stripping but not making up for the lost". Lu Gui Mengshan used objects to satirize and criticize reality. Although their life trajectories are different, Pi Rixiu joined Huang Chao's army after taking the imperial examination and became an official, while Lu Guimeng lived in seclusion and refused to be summoned, but they both "remained in seclusion without forgetting the world", and their poems reflected social turmoil. Pi Rixiu's radical thought of resisting the tyrant in "Yuan Slander" complements Lu Guimeng's reclusive style, reflecting the complex mentality of the late Tang literati. Later generations had mixed reviews of "Pi Lu". The singing and poetry were criticized for their form rather than content, while the critical nature of the prose was praised. Their cooperation can be regarded as a typical example of the creative turn of literati in troubled times.