Lǐ Bái 李白 (701–762)
Zì Tàibái 太白; hào Qīnglián jūshì 青蓮居士. Also known as the Zhéxiān rén 謫仙人 (“Banished Immortal”), an epithet given him by Hè Zhīzhāng 賀知章 on their first meeting in Chángān. The Tàibái in his zì refers to Tàibái xīng 太白星 (Venus), under whose dream-omen, according to Lǐ Yángbīng’s 李陽冰 contemporary preface, his mother conceived him.
Born to a Hàn-Chinese family in Tiáozhī 條支 — a western-frontier outpost variously identified with Suíyè 碎葉 (modern Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan) or Tokharistan, where the family had settled in late-Suí exile. The family fled back to Shǔ 蜀 in Shénlóng 1 (705) and resettled at Miánzhōu 綿州 Chānglóng 昌隆 (modern Jiāngyóu 江油 in Sìchuān), where Lǐ Bái was raised. The Lǒngxī Chéngjì 隴西成紀 native-place attribution in the Xīn Tángshū is a generic Tang-period jùnwàng claim by Lǐ-clan members, not a real native-place statement; the Jiù Tángshū’s Shāndōng attribution reflects the years he later spent in Yǎnzhōu 兗州 with his family in the 740s. (The Sìkù tíyào of KR4c0012 explicitly addresses and resolves this question.)
The principal phases of his career: an extensive Shǔ upbringing and Daoist apprenticeship at the Dàitiān 戴天, Mín 岷, and Éméi 峨眉 mountains; an extended Yangtze-valley yóuxiá 遊俠 tour beginning ca. 725; appointment as Hànlín gōngfèng 翰林供奉 by Xuánzōng in Tiānbǎo 1 (742) on Hè Zhīzhāng’s recommendation, with two years’ service at Chángān until factional pressure forced his retirement in Tiānbǎo 3 (744); further travels through LiángSòng and YānZhào; a brief and politically catastrophic alliance with the rebel prince Lǐ Lín 李璘 in Zhìdé 1–2 (756–757) during the An Lùshān rebellion that nearly cost him his life; pardon and exile-bound progress to Yèláng 夜郎 commuted at the Wūshān 巫山 in 759; final years at Dāngtú 當塗 with his cousin Lǐ Yángbīng; death of illness in Bǎoyìng 1 (762), aged 62 suì.
His extant collection — the Lǐ Tàibái wén jí KR4c0012 in the standard 30-juǎn SòngMǐnqiú / ZēngGǒng recension; the SòngYuán annotated Lǐ Tàibái jí fēnlèi bǔzhù KR4c0013; and the Qīng Wáng Qí annotated Lǐ Tàibái jí zhù KR4c0014 — is one of the largest surviving corpora of any Táng poet, totaling over a thousand poems plus prose. CBDB confirms 701–762 (cbdbId 32540). With Dù Fǔ 杜甫 and Wáng Wéi 王維, one of the three towers of High Táng poetry; with Sū Shì 蘇軾 and Cáo Zhí 曹植 conventionally counted as the three peaks of Chinese lyric verse.