Su Shi (Su Dongpo)

Also known as Zi Zizhan · Hao Dong Po Ju Shi · Su Dongpo · Wen Zhong · Zi Hezhong

Su Shi, courtesy names Zizhan and Hezhong, styled Dongpo Jushi, came from Meishan in Meizhou (Sichuan) and was the son of Su Xun. He passed the jinshi examination in 1057 together with his brother Su Zhe, then opposed Wang Anshi's New Policies and asked for posts away from the capital at Hangzhou, Mizhou, Xuzhou and Huzhou. In 1079 he was jailed by the Censorate for poems said to mock the government, the Crow Terrace case, and was sent to Huangzhou as a militia vice-commissioner; both Red Cliff rhapsodies and the lyric Recalling Antiquity at Red Cliff were written there. Recalled under Yuanyou, he became a Hanlin academician and Minister of Rites, but from 1094 he was banished to Huizhou and in 1097 to Danzhou on Hainan. Pardoned in 1101, he died at Changzhou on the way north, and Emperor Xiaozong later granted him the posthumous name Wenzhong. Ming anthologists placed him, his father and his brother among the Eight Masters of Tang and Song prose.