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Liu Zongyuan (Wade-Giles name: Liu Tsung-yuan) | |
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LIU ZONGYUAN (LIU TSUNG-YUAN) (773-819) Liu Zongyuan was one of the finest prose writers of the Tang dynasty, and was one of only two Tang dynasty writers included among the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song. He was a friend of Han Yu, and one of the followers of the "ancient style" prose movement, which emphasized clarity and utility over ornament in prose writing. He was also a relatively minor poet. He was born and raised in Changan, the capital of the Tang dynasty. After a highly successful early career in civil government, he was reassigned to a post in the provinces (in Yongzhou, Hunan province) after the abdication of Emperor Shunzong in 805. A decade later, he was banished even farther away, to modern Guangxi. His works in exile are considered to be his finest. The writings done in the capital were bureaucratic in nature, and he considered them primarily a means to advance his career; in exile, however, he wrote a number of delightful didactic pieces, showing a Neo-Confucian synthesis of both Daoism and Buddhism (unlike Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan was not adverse to the wave of Buddhism that was then sweeping across China). He is particularly known for his allegorical writings and for his fables, which like Aesop's fables often are tales about animals. ___________________ Morning Walk Alone
After Rain to Northern Pond at Fool's Stream
---Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
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