Han Yu ranked first among Tang-Song prose masters
Han Yu (768–824) rebuilt classical prose as a Confucian weapon against empty ornament and rival teachings. Ming critic Mao Kun placed him first among the Eight Great Prose Masters of Tang and Song. Orphaned young, he rose through Tang offices to the Imperial University.
Born in 768 at Heyang in Henan, Han Yu lost his father at two and grew up in the household of his elder brother Han Hui. The family was sent south in 777 because of its ties to a disgraced minister, and in 781 Han Hui died at his official post in Guangdong. Han Yu needed four attempts to pass the jinshi examination in 792, then worked for provincial military governors before winning a post in the capital in 802, only to be exiled soon after, perhaps for backing the wrong faction or for asking tax relief during a famine.
His most famous act nearly killed him. In 819, as Emperor Xianzong prepared a grand welcome for a finger bone of the Buddha, Han Yu sent a memorial calling Buddhism a foreign cult and the relic something to be destroyed. The furious emperor ordered his execution; friends at court got it reduced to demotion and exile in Chaozhou. After an apology he was moved closer to the capital, and under the next emperor, Muzong, he returned, talked a rebellious commander back into line and later headed the Imperial university before dying in Chang'an on 25 December 824.
In letters, Han Yu led a rebellion against pianwen, the ornate parallel style of the day. With Liu Zongyuan he championed guwen, old-style prose, though his version was a fresh style built on clarity, brevity and usefulness rather than a copy of antiquity. Among his best-known pieces are The Origin of Dao, which condemned Buddhist and Taoist monasticism as economically idle; a Discourse on Teachers arguing that a pupil need not be inferior to a master; a mock decree banishing crocodiles from Chaozhou; and a playful poem on losing his teeth. Critics rate his verse below his essays.
Friends remembered a frank, loyal man and a teacher who kept students laughing. His defence of a waning Confucianism shaped Song thinkers such as Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, although modern scholars are often uneasy with the ferocity of his zeal.
Source: Han Yu
