SEVEN SAGES OF THE BAMBOO GROVE

also called Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, WadeGiles romanization Chu-lin ch'i hsien, Pinyin Zhulin Qi Xian a group of Chinese scholars and poets of the mid-3rd century AD who banded together to escape from the hypocrisy and danger of the official world to a life of drinking wine and writing verse in the country. Their retreat was typical of the Taoist-oriented ch'ing-t'an (pure conversation) movement that advocated freedom of individual expression and hedonistic escape from the extremely corrupt politics of the short-lived Wei-dynasty (AD 220265/266) court. Most prominent among the Seven Sages was the free-thinking, eccentric, and highly skilled poet Yan Chi (AD 210263). Another of the group's poets was Liu Ling (AD 225??280). Hsiang Hsiu (AD 230?280) wrote a famous commentary, the Chuang-tzu chu, with Kuo Hsiang, a Neo-Taoist contemporary, on the works of the early Taoist philosopher Chuang-tzu (d. c. 300 BC). Other members of the group included the musician Yan Hsien, the devout Taoist Shan T'ao, and Wang Jung. Host of the group at his country home in Shan-yang, in the south of present-day Shantung province, was the gifted writer and amateur smith Hsi K'ang (AD 223262), whose independent thinking and scorn for court custom led to his execution by the state, strongly protested by his several thousand followers; Hsi K'ang's execution testifies to the very real dangers that forced the Sages' retirement from palace life. The tensions that were created by such forced retirement are revealed in the writings of the Seven Sages and other eremitic poets of their time. Their poems and essays frequently centre on the impossibility of palace life for the scholar (with criticisms of the court sometimes necessarily veiled in allegory) and the pleasures and hardships of country life. The retirement of the Seven Sages served as a model for that of later Chinese writers living in troubled times.