Meng Haoran

Also known as Zi Haoran · Haomeng Shanren · Lumen Chushi

Meng Haoran came from Xiangyang. The New Book of Tang (Xin Tangshu) says he valued integrity as a young man, liked to help people in trouble and lived for years as a recluse on Lumen Mountain near his home. In the winter of 727 he went to Chang'an to seek office, failed the metropolitan examination the next year, and exchanged poems with Wang Wei, Zhang Jiuling and others in the capital. He then wandered through the lower Yangzi region before returning to Xiangyang. In 737 Zhang Jiuling, demoted to Jingzhou, took him onto his staff, but he soon went home again. When Wang Changling visited Xiangyang in 740, Meng was recovering from an abscess on his back; Wang Shiyuan's preface to his collected poems says that he ate fish at the welcoming feast, fell ill again and died, aged fifty-two. Li Bai's poem "To Meng Haoran" opens with the line "I love Master Meng", saying his free spirit was known throughout the realm.