Han Yu (768–824), born in Nanyang

Nanyang, Henan

Nanyang is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Henan province, People's Republic of China. The city with the largest administrative area in Henan, Nanyang borders Xinyang to the southeast, Zhumadian to the east, Pingdingshan to the northeast, Luoyang to the north, Sanmenxia to the...

, Henan

Henan

Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, was a precursor of Neo-Confucianism

Neo-Confucianism

Neo-Confucianism is an ethical and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, that was primarily developed during the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty....

 as well as an essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

ist and poet, during the Tang dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

. The Indiana Companion calls him "comparable in stature to Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

, Shakespeare or Goethe" for his influence on the Chinese literary tradition (p. 397). He stood for strong central authority in politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and orthodoxy

Orthodoxy

The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...

 in cultural matters. He is also among China's finest prose writers, second only to Sima Qian

Sima Qian

Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography for his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , a "Jizhuanti"-style general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to...

, and first among the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song". Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 Su Shi

Su Shi

Su Shi , was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher, pharmacologist, gastronome, and statesman of the Song Dynasty, and one of the major poets of the Song era. His courtesy name was Zizhan and his pseudonym was Dongpo Jushi , and he is often referred to as Su Dongpo...

 praised Han Yu that he had written prose which "raised the standards after 8 dynasties of literary weaknesses" (文起八代之衰).

Biography

He was born in Nanyang, Henan, to a literary family. His father died when he was two, and he was raised in the family of his older brother, Han Hui. He taught himself to read and write and was a student of philosophical writings and confucian thought. His family moved to Changan in 774 but was banished to Southern China in 777 because of its association with disgraced minister Yuan Zai. Han Hui died in 781. In 792, after four attempts, Han Yu passed the imperial exam (jin shi). A few years later he went into the service of the military governor of Bianzhou, and then of the military governor of Xuzhou." He gained his first central government position in 802, but was soon exiled; seemingly for failing to support the heir apparent's faction (other possible reasons are because of his criticism of the misbehaviour of the emperor's servants or his request for reduction of taxes during a famine). From 807 to 819 he held a series of posts first in Luoyang

Luoyang

Luoyang is a prefecture-level city in western Henan province of Central China. It borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north, and Jiaozuo to the northeast.Situated on the central plain of...

 and then in Chang'an

Chang'an

Chang'an is an ancient capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history, today known as Xi'an. Chang'an literally means "Perpetual Peace" in Classical Chinese. During the short-lived Xin Dynasty, the city was renamed "Constant Peace" ; yet after its fall in AD 23, the old name was restored...

. During these years, he was strong advocate of reimposing central control over the separatist provinces of the north-east. This period of service came to an end when he wrote his celebrated Memorial on Bone-relics of the Buddha. This protest against Buddhist influence on the country has been called "belligerently uncompromising and... disrespectful to the edge of personally insulting the emperor". Its only immediate effect was to prompt Han Yu's dismissal and exile to Chaozhou

Chaozhou

Chaozhou is a city in eastern Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China. It borders Shantou to the south, Jieyang to the southwest, Meizhou to the northwest, the province of Fujian to the east, and the South China Sea to the southeast...

. "After a number of their distinguished government posts, he died at the age of fifty-six in Changan."

Thoughts and Beliefs

"Han Yu is generally considered the greatest master of classical prose in the Tang. He was an important Confucian Intellectual and served as the sponsor of many literary figures of the turn of the ninth century. Although he was Meng Jiao's strongest supporter, Han Yu was himself a very different poet. Han Yu wrote in many modes, often with discursiveness and experimental daring. He was "a Confucian thinker and was deeply opposed to Buddhism, a religion that was then popular in the court. Han Yu came close to being executed in 819 for sending a letter to the emperor in which he denounced "the elaborate preparations being made by the state to receive the Buddha's fingerbone, which he called 'a filthy object' and which he said should be 'handed over to the proper officials for destruction by water and fire to eradicate forever its origin'. He believed that literature and ethics were intertwined, and he led a revolution in prose style against the formal ornamentation then popular."

Han Yu advocated the personal assimilation of Confucian values through the Classics, making them part of one's life. He also championed what came to be called "old style prose," breaking free of the stylized formality of much Tang prose to a kind of writing more suited to argumentation and the expression of ideas.

Poetry

His "writings, especially his essays, are often of the very highest order, leaving nothing to be desired either in originality or in style. Han Yu wrote a large quantity of verse, frequently playful, on an immense variety of subjects, and under his touch the commonplace was often transmuted into wit. Among other pieces there is one on his teeth, which seemed to drop out at regular intervals, so that he could calculate roughly what span of life remained to him."

Overall Significance

Han Yu died on December 25, 824 and was buried April 21, 825 in the ancestral cemetery at Ho-Yang. He ranks among the most important personalities in the history of traditional Chinese culture. All the major accounts of Han Yu's life agree that he had an open and forthright character, which manifested itself in his unswerving loyalty to his friends. He was a great conversationalist and an inspired teacher: "His teaching and his efforts to mold his students were unrelating, fearing they would not be perfect. Yet he amused them with jokes and with the chanting of poems, so that they were enraptured with his teaching and forgot about returning home". The sense of humor that is so obvious in his writing was also important in his life. Contemporarily, it is 'due to his calm and dignified patriotism that the Chinese still keep his memory green." Most modern scholarship, although content to assign to Han Yu a secure place in the history of Chinese literature, has been embarrassed by the violence of his Confucian passions. Han Yu's own life and personality as well as understanding of T'ang history have made this process more feasible than it would have been half a century ago. Han Yu is among the most personal and at the same time the most open of Chinese authors, he writes often and frankly about his own life, his feelings, his career, his friends. Accordingly, almost 95 percent of his writings can be securely dated and then read against the political history of the time. The result is a remarkably clear picture of Han Yu as an active participant in the political life of his age. "

Sources

• Barnstone, Tony and Chou Ping (ed.) (2005). The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry, Random House, New York.
• Birch, Cyril (ed.) (1965). Anthology of Chinese Literature. Grove Press, Inc., New York.
• Giles, Herbert G. (1973). A History of Chinese Literature. Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc. Rutland, Vermont.
• Hartman, Charles. (1986). Han Yu and the T'ang Search for Unity. Princeton University Press, New Jersey.
• Owen, Stephen (ed.) (1996). An Anthology of Chinese Literature. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York.

External links

• John Thompson on Han Yu and the guqin