Han Yu was perhaps the most influential Confucian of the Late Tang. He was a rigid and puritan Confucian, who stridently protested official patronage of Buddhism and the high valuation of excessively flowery writing in government examinations. Banished from Chang’an for his intolerant arrogance, he won his way back to power and prestige through impressive feats of administration and military command in distant southern jurisdictions. Paradoxically, in the poem we see here, this Confucian paragon demonstrates his sympathy with the Daoist taste for withdrawal into nature and an almost Buddhistic meditation on the evanescence of life.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Han Yu
Han Yu (768-824)
Han Yu was perhaps the most influential Confucian of the Late Tang. He was a rigid and puritan Confucian, who stridently protested official patronage of Buddhism and the high valuation of excessively flowery writing in government examinations. Banished from Chang’an for his intolerant arrogance, he won his way back to power and prestige through impressive feats of administration and military command in distant southern jurisdictions. Paradoxically, in the poem we see here, this Confucian paragon demonstrates his sympathy with the Daoist taste for withdrawal into nature and an almost Buddhistic meditation on the evanescence of life.
Han Yu was perhaps the most influential Confucian of the Late Tang. He was a rigid and puritan Confucian, who stridently protested official patronage of Buddhism and the high valuation of excessively flowery writing in government examinations. Banished from Chang’an for his intolerant arrogance, he won his way back to power and prestige through impressive feats of administration and military command in distant southern jurisdictions. Paradoxically, in the poem we see here, this Confucian paragon demonstrates his sympathy with the Daoist taste for withdrawal into nature and an almost Buddhistic meditation on the evanescence of life.
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