Tao Yuanming

Life

Tao Yuanming, by Min Zhen,from 18th century China.

• Born in 365(CE) in Chaisang to a prominent southern noble family.

• Served many civil and military posts, but none of high position.
  • Last position was of county magistrate at Pengze (not far from hometown).

• During this period of service in a series of minor posts, Tao Yuanming's poems begin to indicate that he was becoming torn between ambition and a desire to retreat into solitude.

• One source states that Tao was the first Chinese poet to grapple with the justification of my decision to withdraw from office. [Nienhauser, 193]

• In 405 my sister died. This in addition with my disgust at the corruption and infighting of the Jin Court lead me to resign.

• I had become convinced that life was too short to compromise on my principles.
  • The last 22 years of my life I lived in retirement.

• I have a personal inclination towards a private life of leisure and spontaneity.

• Considered "Neo-Taoist".

Poetry

First, what is reclusion? Here is a great quote from Fredrick Mote:

"in Chinese society... [terms designating recluses] signified withdrawal from the active

public life in the service of society that Confucian ethics prescribed as the most suitable course for all whose abilities, cultivation, and learning qualified them for it. To bar one's gates and earn one's own living without reliance on the emolument of office, to display a lack of regard for the social status which could be attained only by entering officialdom, and to devote one's life to self-cultivation, scholarship or artistic pursuits

made one a recluse." [Swartz 79]

• I was not the first to write about reclusion. I had significant influence though: I transformed stock images and normal vocabulary into highly personalized poetry.
  • I alluded to the "here and now" any my particular circumstance rather then generic gentleman reclusion. This made my poems very autobiographical, but not in the normal objective sense. (Chang, Owens 222)
  • This made quite the impact, for future poems and fu's began to have short prefaces before them, also explaining the author's circumstance around the composition.(Chang, Owens 222)

• I also introduced many new topics in my poetry, such as: (Chang, Owens 222)
  • Begging
  • Moving
  • Encountering a fire
  • Harvesting dry rice

• I was also the first to introduce calendar dates in my extremely long poem titles, something which has become a common practice. (Chang, Owens 221)

• The Peach Blossom Spring
  • One of my very influential works.
  • Quick Summary: A fisherman stumbles upon a hidden utopia. Its citizens are unaware of the outside world, and are quite satisfied where they are.

Four biographies from later authors covered me in great detail:

1. History of the Liu Song (Song shu)
2. History of the Southern Dynasties (Nan shi)
3. History of the Jin (Jin shu)
4. Biography of Tao Yuanming

They provided accounts for my life and character, and were never questioned as principal guide to reading my works. Written in the late fifth to early seventh centuries, they have been accepted as fact and treated as primary sources. However, when studied against my own works, they do not stand up to the critical analysis, and often contradict one another (Swartz 79).

Principally, authors choose how to present my life, and what characteristics they want to idealize.
An example in the Records of the Grand Historian: The author would narrate one or two key scenes from the subject. Like a half body portrait; the image is not complete but the personality is very vivid (Nienhauser 192).

While all four have very similar content, the process of adding and deleting material shows a very different picture (Swartz 78).
For example, in the Book of Song, Shen Yue uses stories where I am seen drinking, but still trying to show genuineness and candor. From them on these qualities would be adapted as part of my image (Nienhauser 194).

I was portrayed as a lofty recluse, very loyal to the Jin dynasty (simply not true), and one who drinks a lot and enjoys simple poetry. While not entirely false, I was a lot more then that!

Many annotated works from authoritative scholars already exist, and they served as the foundation for most criticism and interpretation. People pay a lot of attention to the allusions, names, and analysis of the syntax in the annotations, but forget about the textual and manuscript variants – we taken them as records (Swartz 79).

However it is these variants that matter. They compete with each other, one trying to beat the other. Is there a legitimate, single, definite version of the text?

• My poems have very many different versions that have been edited to server a particular aesthetic and ideological purpose.

Sadly we do not have the original manuscripts authored by me, so we have to take every version into account (Nienhauser 193). There are many historical, ideological, and cultural contexts in the text. This makes me much more complicated and engaging then previously thought (Nienhauser 194).

A key line:

“I gaze (or see) at South Mountain in the distance”

There are many different readings to this sentence, and Su Shi was confident that he had gotten the true meaning when he said "see" was more spontaneous than "gaze".

This is because of the importance of "possessing" in Song culture. People were very anxious about the authenticity of texts and about getting the genuine edition.

References:

Powerpoint

[Powerpoint]

1.Nienhauser, Jr., William H. "Reviewed Work(s): Tao Yuanming and Manuscript Culture: The Record of a Dusty Table by Xiaofei Tian." Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 28 (2006): 191-95. JSTOR. Web. 4 Feb. 2012.

2. Kang-i Sun Chang, Stephen Owen, eds., The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature 2 volume set (Hardcover), 1704 pages, Cambridge University Press; 1st ed. March 31, 2010.

3. Swartz, Wendy. "Rewriting a Recluse: The Early Biographers' Construction of Tao Yuanming." Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 26 (2004): 77-97. JSTOR. Web. 1 Feb. 2012.