Mei Yaochen () (1002–1060) was a Chinese

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

of the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

. He was one of the pioneers of the "new subjective" style of poetry which characterized Song

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

.Cihai: Page 1306. Mei Yaochen was born in

Xuancheng Xuancheng ( zh, s=宣城, p=Xuānchéng''; Xuanzhou Wu dialects, Xuanzhou Wu:'' Shye-san) is a city in the southeast of Anhui province. Archeological digs suggest that the city has been settled for over 4,000 years, and has been under formal admin ...

in present-day

Anhui Province Anhui is an inland province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiangxi to the south, Hub ...

. His

style name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

was 'Sheng Yu' (). He passed the jinshi exam in 1051 and had a career in the

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

, but was unsuccessful. He was a prolific poet, with around 3000 works extant; he was popularized as a poet by the younger Ouyang Xiu. Most of his works are in the '' shi'' form, but they are much freer in content than those of the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

. His response to the impossibility of surpassing the Tang poets was to make a virtue of his lack of ambition; his ideal was 平淡 (pingdan), or the pedestrian. His early verses are often socio-critical, advocating reform along

Neo-Confucian Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a Morality, moral, Ethics, ethical, and metaphysics, metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768� ...

lines; later he turned to celebrations of ordinary life and verses mourning the deaths of his first wife and several of his children. An example is his poem translated into English by Kenneth Rexroth as "An Excuse for Not Returning the Visit of a Friend."

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References

* Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979. Jonathan Chaves. MEI YAO-CH'EN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY SUNG POETRY. New York: Columbia University Press. 1976. 1002 births 1060 deaths 11th-century Chinese poets People from Xuancheng Poets from Anhui Song dynasty poets {{China-poet-stub

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