section_path: Themes/Technical virtuosity
section_name: Technical virtuosity
paragraph_text: Technical virtuosity
  
  Li Bai is well known for the technical virtuosity of his poetry and the mastery of his verses. In terms of poetic form, "critics generally agree that Li produced no significant innovations... In theme and content also, his poetry is notable less for the new elements it introduces than for the skill with which he brightens the old ones."
  
  Burton Watson comments on Li Bai's famous poem, which he translates "Bring the Wine": "like so much of Li 's work, it has a grace and effortless dignity that somehow make it more compelling than earlier treatment of the same."
  
  Li Bai's yuefu poems have been called the greatest of all time by Ming-dynasty scholar and writer Hu Yinglin.
  
  Li Bai especially excelled in the Gushi form, or "old style" poems, a type of poetry allowing a great deal of freedom in terms of the form and content of the work. An example is his poem "蜀道難", translated by Witter Bynner as "Hard Roads in Shu". Shu is a poetic term for Sichuan, the destination of refuge that Emperor Xuanzong considered fleeing to escape the approaching forces of the rebel General An Lushan. Watson comments that, this poem, "employs lines that range in length from four to eleven characters, the form of the lines suggesting by their irregularity the jagged peaks and bumpy mountain roads of Sichuan depicted in the poem."
  
  Li Bai was also noted as a master of the jueju, or cut-verse. Ming-dynasty poet Li Pan Long thought Li Bai was the greatest jueju master of the Tang dynasty.
  
  Li Bai was noted for his mastery of the lüshi, or "regulated verse", the formally most demanding verse form of the times. Watson notes, however, that his poem "Seeing a Friend Off" was "unusual in that it violates the rule that the two middle couplets... must observe verbal parallelism", adding that Chinese critics excused this kind of violation in the case of a genius like Li.