Su Shi

Su Shi the Chinese poet, essayist, painter, calligrapher and official of the Song dynasty (1037-1101), also known as Su Dongpo, who is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the history of Chinese literature. His verse, prose and painting, and the many offices he held in a turbulent political career, made him a central figure of the culture of the Northern Song.

Early Life and Examination Success

Su Shi was born in 1037 in Meishan, in present-day Sichuan province, the son of a scholarly family. His father, Su Xun, was himself a noted essayist, and his younger brother Su Zhe became a distinguished writer as well. The three are known together as the Three Su of the Song, a celebrated literary family. Su Shi's mother gave the boys their first education and encouraged their ambitions.

In 1057 Su Shi and his brother travelled to the capital Kaifeng for the imperial examinations and both passed with the highest distinction. The chief examiner, the great prose writer Ouyang Xiu, was so impressed by Su Shi's paper that he suspected it might have been written by one of his own students, and he gave it second place rather than risk the appearance of favouritism. Even so, Su Shi's talent was immediately recognised.

He entered the official career for which his education had prepared him, but its early years were interrupted by the death of his mother and then of his father, which required him to withdraw from office to observe the customary mourning. When he returned to public life he stepped into a period of intense political conflict over the reform of the empire's government.

Official Career and Political Exile

In the 1060s the chancellor Wang Anshi introduced a sweeping programme of reforms, the New Policies, aimed at strengthening the state's finances and its military capacity. Su Shi, though not opposed to change in principle, believed that the reforms were too rapid and too harsh in their effects on ordinary people, and he spoke and wrote against them. His opposition placed him in the faction of the conservatives.

His criticism of the reform party made him enemies and led to his first major setback. In 1079 he was arrested and tried on a charge that he had written slanderous verses against the emperor, an affair known as the Crow Terrace case. He was imprisoned and narrowly escaped execution, and was then banished to the remote post of Huangzhou in the lower Yangtze region.

It was during his long periods of exile and demotion that much of his finest writing was composed. He was sent to Hangzhou, to Mizhou, to Huangzhou and later to still more distant places, and at each stop he wrote poetry, essays and letters recording both his sorrow and his delight. After the death of the empress and a change of policy he was recalled and restored to favour, only to be dismissed again when the political wheel turned once more.

Literary Achievement and the Three Su

Su Shi is admired as a master of almost every literary form. His poetry ranges from long narrative and philosophical pieces to brief and vivid observations of nature, and his ci, poems written to set melodic patterns, transformed that genre by extending its range to include heroic and reflective subjects. He is often credited with opening the ci to the full breadth of experience.

His prose essays and memorials are celebrated for their clarity, their wit and their command of argument, and he wrote memorably on history, politics, art and the use of leisure. He composed classical rhapsodies and philosophical essays, and his letters and prefaces are treasured as models of the art of informal writing. Later critics ranked him with the greatest authors of the Tang and Song.

His father Su Xun and his brother Su Zhe were themselves accomplished writers, and the family's collective reputation gave rise to the name Three Su. Su Shi, however, stands at the centre of the group, and his own son Su Guo also wrote poetry. The breadth of his literary accomplishment is such that Chinese tradition commonly names him as the foremost man of letters of the Song dynasty.

Calligraphy, Painting and Connoisseurship

Su Shi was one of the four great calligraphers of the Song. His running script is valued for its naturalness and its expressive freedom, and he held that calligraphy should express the writer's character rather than merely imitate ancient models. He argued that the brush should move as the spirit directs, and his surviving letters and colophons show a grace that seems effortless.

As a painter he worked chiefly in ink on subjects such as bamboo, rocks and old trees, and he insisted that painting should serve the expression of the painter's inner life rather than the mere copying of appearances. He was among the first to articulate the ideal of literati painting, in which the educated amateur, guided by cultivation and sensibility, was prized above the professional craftsman. This idea shaped Chinese painting for centuries.

He was also a discerning collector and critic of art. His writings on painting and calligraphy set out a theory of the relationship between art and the personality of the artist, and his praise or blame could make the reputation of a work. His circle at court and in the provinces became a centre for the discussion of poetry, painting and the arts of the scholar.

Influence and Legacy

Su Shi's influence on later Chinese culture was immense. His poems and essays entered the canon of the imperial examinations and were memorised by generations of students, and his ci reshaped the poetry of the Song and after. Writers of every later dynasty looked to him as a model of learning, versatility and integrity, and his name became a byword for literary excellence.

His life of repeated exile and hardship gave him a special place in the affection of the Chinese people. He is remembered as a man who bore misfortune with humour and serenity, who kept his humane sympathies in the midst of factional struggle, and who at every posting concerned himself with the welfare of the local people. Legends and stories gathered around him, and he became the subject of a rich popular tradition.

He died in 1101, shortly after being pardoned and recalled from one of his exiles. He is honoured as the greatest of the Song writers and as a symbol of the scholar-official at his best, equally at home in poetry, prose, painting and government. A temple and a park are dedicated to his memory, and his name is attached to dishes, place names and stories wherever Chinese culture has travelled.

See also

• Su Xun
• Su Zhe
• Ouyang Xiu
• Ci poetry