Ouyang Xiu
| Names | |
|---|---|
| Xìng 姓: | Ōuyáng 歐陽(欧阳) |
| Míng 名: | Xiū 修 |
| Zì 字: | Yǒngshū 永叔 |
| Hào 號: | Zuìwēng 醉翁 Liùyī Jūshì 六一居士¹ |
| Shì 謚: | Wénzhōng 文忠² |
| 1. late in his life | |
| 2. hence referred to as Ōuyáng Wénzhōnggōng 歐陽文忠公 | |
Ouyang Xiu (Chinese: 歐陽修, 欧阳修; Wade–Giles: Ou-yang Hsiu) (1007 – September 22, 1072 [1]), courtesy name is Yongshu, also self nicknamed The Old Drunkard 醉翁, or The Retired Scholar of the One of Six 六一居士 [2] at his late age, was a Chinese statesman, historian, essayist and poet of the Song Dynasty.
He was born in present day Ji'an, Jiangxi into a relatively poor family, losing his father when he was four. Unable to afford traditional tutoring, he was largely self-taught. He passed the jinshi degree exam in 1030 and became a major establishment figure of the period, but independent thought continued to be one of his hallmarks. Politically, he was an early patron of the political reformer Wang Anshi, but later became one of his strongest opponents. In his late 20s, he lost a factional battle at court and was sent out to a provincial area of present day Chuzhou, Anhui
In his prose works, he followed the example of Han Yu, promoting the Classical Prose Movement. He was traditionally classed as one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song. Among his most famous prose works is the Zuiweng Tingji (literally means, Regarding the Pavilion of The Old Drunkard: 醉翁亭记), a description of his pastoral lifestyle among the mountains, rivers and people of Chuzhou. The work is lyrical in its quality and acclaimed as one of the highest achievements of Chinese travel writing.
As a historian, he has been criticised as overly didactic, but he played an important role in establishing the use of epigraphy as a historiographic technique. Epigraphy as well as the practice of calligraphy figured in Ouyang's contributions to Confucian aesthetics. In his Record of the Eastern Study he states how literary minded gentlemen might utilize their leisure to nourish their mental state. The practice of calligraphy and the appreciation of associated art objects were integral to this Daoist-like transformation of intellectual life. He also composed the New History of the Five Dynasties and New Book of Tang in 1053 and 1060 respectively.
His poems are generally relaxed, humorous, and often self-depreciatory; he gave himself the title The Old Drunkard. He wrote both shi and ci. His shi are stripped-down to the essentials emphasised in the early Tang period, eschewing the ornate style of the late Tang. He is best known, however, for his ci. In particular, his series of ten poems entitled West Lake is Good set to the tune Picking Mulberries helped to popularise the genre as a vehicle for serious poetry. In 1072, he died in present day Fuyang, Anhui.
Notes
- ^ 8th day of the 8th month of Xining 5 (熙寧五年八月八日), which corresponds to September 22, 1072 in the Julian calendar.
- ^ He once explained to a guest that in his house he had 10,000 folios of books which he had collected, 1,000 scrolls of inscriptions dated as early as the Xia, Shang and Western Zhou, one Guqin, one chess set, and usually one pot of wine. When the guest said this was just one of five, he replied, I am an old man amongst these five; does that not make six? Liuyi Jushi Zhuan 414
BOOKS
Egan, Ronald C., The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu, Cambridge, 1984.
ARTICLES
Biography by James T.C. Liu in Franke, Herbert, Sung Biographies, Wiesbaden, 1976,vol. 2, pp. 808-816.
Carpenter, Bruce E., 'Confucian Aesthetics and Eleventh Century Ou-yang Hsiu' in Tezukayama University Review (Tezukayama Daigaku Ronshu) Nara, Japan, 1988, no. 59, pp. 111-118.