Tao Yuanming

Tao Yuanming the Chinese poet of the Eastern Jin and early Song period (365-427), celebrated as the greatest poet of the recluse and of the simple life. His verses on farming, wine and the return to the countryside made him the founding figure of the pastoral tradition in Chinese literature.

Early Life and Official Service

Tao Yuanming was born in 365 in the region of Jiujiang, near the mountains of the lower Yangtze, into a family of modest scholarly standing. His great-grandfather had been a distinguished general, but the family's fortunes had declined, and he grew up in relative poverty. He is said to have been fond of books, of solitude and of the countryside from his youth.

He took up official employment on several occasions, as was expected of a man of his education. He served in minor posts, including that of magistrate of Pengze, but he found the constraints of office, the deference required and the constant demands of superiors deeply uncongenial to his temperament.

According to the most famous story of his life, he held the magistracy of Pengze for only some eighty days. Rather than submit to an inspection by a superior official, an occasion that would have required him to dress formally and to bow, he declared that he would not bend his waist for five measures of rice, resigned his post and returned home. He was then in his early forties and never held office again.

The Return to the Fields

The years after his resignation were spent in retirement at his country estate, where he cultivated his land, drank wine and wrote poetry. His poems describe with unusual intimacy the labours and pleasures of rural life: the hoeing of the fields, the sound of the returning birds, the taste of wine after a day's work and the company of neighbours.

His most celebrated work in prose is the Record of the Peach Blossom Spring, a short tale of a fisherman who discovers a hidden valley whose inhabitants have lived since the Qin dynasty in peace and plenty, untouched by the wars and dynasties of the outside world. The story, at once a utopia and an elegy, became one of the best loved pieces in Chinese literature.

He wrote a series of poems called Returning to the Fields, in which he celebrated the recovery of his true nature in the life of the farm. His poetry is marked by plainness of language, directness of feeling and a quiet acceptance of poverty and age. He made no attempt to imitate the ornate style fashionable among his contemporaries.

Poetry and Style

Tao Yuanming wrote in a plain and unadorned manner, in contrast to the elaborate and allusive verse favoured by the poets of his day. He chose ordinary subjects, the drinking of wine, the blooming of the chrysanthemum, the duties of the farm and the passage of the seasons, and treated them with a seriousness and a depth of feeling that transformed them.

His sequence of twenty poems on drinking is among his most famous works. In them he reflects on the brevity of life, the vanity of ambition and the consolations of wine and friendship, and he develops an image of the wise man who accepts his circumstances without bitterness. The poems combine a light, almost casual tone with genuine philosophical weight.

His treatment of nature and of the life of the recluse made him the model for centuries of later poetry. He is especially associated with the chrysanthemum, the flower of autumn and of the solitary scholar, and with the image of the poet who withdraws from the world to find contentment in a garden and a cup of wine.

Philosophy and Character

Tao Yuanming was influenced by both Confucian and Daoist ideas, and his poetry reflects a personal synthesis of them. He accepted the Confucian duty of service and the discipline of learning, yet in the end he chose the Daoist ideal of withdrawal and naturalness, the life that follows its own nature without striving after office or fame.

He was preoccupied with the brevity of human life and with the problem of how to live well in the face of death. His poems return continually to the passing of time and to the futility of anxious ambition, and he counsels acceptance rather than struggle. Yet his resignation is not bleak; it is accompanied by a vivid delight in wine, music, friendship and the beauty of the world.

He is remembered for his integrity and his independence of spirit. The refusal to bend the waist for five measures of rice became a byword for the scholar who will not sacrifice his self-respect for advancement, and his example was invoked whenever a later writer wished to defend the choice of poverty with dignity over wealth with servility.

Influence and Legacy

Tao Yuanming's reputation grew greatly after his death, and by the Tang dynasty he was regarded as one of the greatest of Chinese poets. Poets such as Wang Wei, Li Bai and Su Shi admired him deeply, and Su Shi wrote that his poetry seemed to contain something of everything. His name became synonymous with the pastoral tradition he had founded.

His image of the peach blossom spring inspired countless later poems, paintings and essays, and the phrase entered the language as a name for an ideal, peaceful place. The idea of a hidden community living in simplicity apart from the turbulence of history resonated through Chinese culture and beyond.

He is honoured as the poet who gave the life of retirement its classic expression, and as a moral example of the scholar who chose integrity over office. His grave and his memorial were preserved in later ages, and he remains one of the most beloved figures in the Chinese literary tradition, the poet of the fields, the chrysanthemum and the cup.

See also

• Pastoral poetry
• Record of the Peach Blossom Spring
• Six Dynasties poetry
• Xie Lingyun