HAN Y

born 768, Teng-chou, Honan Province, China died 824, Ch'ang-an Pinyin Han Yu, also called Han Wen-kung master of Chinese prose, outstanding poet, and the first proponent of what later came to be known as Neo-Confucianism, which had wide influence in China and Japan. An orphan, Han initially failed his civil service exams because the examiners refused to accept his unconventional prose style, but he eventually entered the bureaucracy and served in several high government posts. At his death the title of president of the ministry of rites was conferred upon him, as well as the epithet Prince of Letters, both great honours. At a time when its popularity had greatly declined, Han began a defense of the Confucian doctrine. He attacked Taoism and Buddhism, which were then at the height of their influence. So outspoken was he that he castigated the emperor for paying respect to the supposed finger bone of the Buddha, an act that almost cost Han Y his life and because of which he was banished to South China for a year. In defending Confucianism, Han quoted extensively from the Mencius, the Ta hseh (Great Learning), the Chung-yung (Doctrine of the Mean), and the I Ching (Classic of Changes), works that hitherto had been somewhat neglected by Confucians. In so doing, he laid the foundations for later Neo-Confucianists who took their basic ideas from these books. Han advocated the adoption of the free, simple prose of these early philosophers, a style unencumbered by the mannerisms and elaborate verselike regularity of the parallel prose that was prevalent in Han's time. His own essays (e.g., On the Way, On Man, On Spirits) are among the most beautiful ever written in Chinese, and they became the most famous models of the prose style he espoused. In his poetry also, Han tried to break out of the existing literary forms, but many of his efforts at literary reform failed.