Yan Yu

Also known as Zi Danqiu · Hao Cang Lang Bu Ke · Yan Canglang · Zi Yiqing

Yan Yu, courtesy names Yiqing and Danqiu, styled the Canglang Recluse, came from Shaowu in Fujian. He never held office, and with his kinsmen Yan Ren and Yan Can he was known as one of the Three Yans of Shaowu. His Canglang Remarks on Poetry (Canglang shihua), in five parts, argued that poetry rests on a talent and an interest of its own that owe nothing to book learning or reasoning, and that the way of poetry, like the way of Chan, lies in awakening. It faulted Song poets, chiefly Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and the Jiangxi school, for making poems out of words, learning and argument, and told students to model themselves on the Han, Wei and High Tang. In a letter to his relative Wu Jingxian he called the Chan comparison the most fitting he knew. In the Qing, Wang Shizhen, advocating a poetry of spirit and resonance, often quoted his image of the antelope that hangs by its horns and leaves no trace.