唐中葉의 政治와 白居易·원진의 입장 = Po Chu-i(白居易) & Yuan Chen(원진)

국문 초록 (Abstract)

Yuan Chen(원진:779-831 ) and Po Chu-i(白居易:772-846) were close friends throughout their political career. Even though they shared the literary limelight together, it is well known that Yuan Chen has been overshadowed by his friend Po Chu-i in politics as well as in literary fame. Still both Po Chu-i and Yuan Chen are known to be the best poets who wrote a quantity of poems lamenting upon the shadowy side of society and the life of high officials in mid-T'ang dynasty.
Yuan Chen was a descendant of the imperial house of the Toba-Wei(拓跋魏:386-552) that ruled North China during the Southern and Northern dynasties. Po Chu-i was a descendant of a hereditary ruling class and was born at the House of his grandfather Po Huang, in a small town(新鄭縣) in the part of Honan(河南省) that lies just south of the Yellow River.
After the An-Shih Rebellion the political disorder in T'ang imperial court became more complicated, and at the Same time North-Eastern part of China was in revolt against the T'ang government. In 782 four local commanders set up independent administrations and took the title of 'king' .
The bureaucrats in the court were divided in their views regarding the policies of the central government toward the military power in outlying districts. Factions at court, divided politically and by sociaI origin, became so strong that the entire administration was threatened.
The emperor Hsien-tsung (憲宗:r.806-820) became an emperor with a help of eunuchs and military backing and by him the Yuan-ho(元和) era was inaugurated in 806.
Under his own administration, new cliques formed around the aristocratic scholar-officials of the traditional hereditary ruling class on the one side, and newcomers on the other. The latter, as a rule, were young intellectuals, who became officials through government examinations and show sympathies to the common people.
It is to this new faction that po Chu-i and Yuan Chen seems to have belonged, although by lineage they were differ from each other. The so-called ' new faction' to which Po Chu-i and Yuan Chen belonged was led by Niu Seng-ju(牛僧孺:779-848) and Li Tsung-min(李宗閔:d.806), who represented the young intellectuals then rising to power through the examination system.
The opposing faction was led by Li Te-yu(李德裕:787-850), son of the Chief Minister Li Chi-fu(李吉甫:758-812), who represented conservative elements with long ties of association to the imperial house and hereditary titles dating back to the founding the dynasty.
The struggle for political power between these two factions, intensified by personal feuds among the party leaders, continued for almost fifty years, and weakened the bureaucratic structure upon which the empire rested and strengthened further the power of the eunuchs who had entrenched themselves in the central administration and armies.
Under these unfortunate political circumstances both of their political career seems to be failed, because Po Chu-i had served as a quite high official in central government, still never as a minister and Yuan Chen served only very short term as a minister in central government. Also they both spent most of their time either as commissioner in province far out from the capital city of Ch'ang An(長安), or as a high officials in Lo-yang(洛陽).

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 緖言
• Ⅱ. 元·白의 政治·社會的 입장
• 1. 白居易의 政治·社會的 입장
• 2. 원진의 政治·社會的 입장
• Ⅲ. 黨爭시기에 있어 白居易·원진의 입장비교
• Ⅳ. 結語