Writers › Writer / Poet
Tao Yuanming
Eastern Jin poet who quit as magistrate of Pengze after some eighty days and spent his last two decades farming and writing of country life
Mural of Drinking Wine · Poem 5 (Plucking Chrysanthemums), a work by this person.
Tao Yuanming gathers chrysanthemums by the eastern fence and looks toward Southern Mountain as birds return at dusk. The unhurried scene expresses a life chosen in harmony with nature.
Also known as Zi Yuanliang · Wuliu Xiansheng · Zi Yuanming · Tao Qian
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Tao Yuanming, personal name Qian, was from Chaisang in Xunyang (modern Jiujiang); the *Book of Song* (*Songshu*) gives his courtesy name as Yuanming, or by another account Yuanliang. He was a great-grandson of the Eastern Jin grand marshal Tao Kan. He took and soon left posts as provincial libationer and as adjutant to two generals. In 405 he became magistrate of Pengze, but after some eighty days, unwilling to dress formally to receive a visiting inspector, he handed back his seal and wrote 'Returning Home'. He then farmed, declined a later summons as court editor, and wrote the 'Returning to Live in the Country' and 'Drinking Wine' series and 'The Peach Blossom Spring'. He died in 427, and his friend Yan Yanzhi gave him the private posthumous name Jingjie. Zhong Rong's *Grades of Poets* (*Shipin*) called him the founder of recluse poetry, and Xiao Tong compiled his collected works with a preface.
Life and times
Dates c. 365 CE–427 CE