Ouyang Xiu

Ouyang Xiu (Chinese欧阳修/欧阳修, Ou - Yang Hsiu W.-G. ), brush name Perpetual uncle (永 叔, Yǒngshū ), also known as drunken Age (醉翁, Zuìwēng ) and Stiller scholar Six - One (六 一 居士, Liuyi Jushi ) (* 1007, † 1072 ) was a Chinese statesman, historian, essayist, and poet of the song Dynasty.

Life

Born into a relatively poor family in Luling ( Jiangxi Province ), he lost four years old his father. A traditional education because he could not afford, he worked autodidact. 1030 he passed the Jinshi exam.

At first he was a partisan of the famous reformer Wang Anshi, but later became his adversary. At the end of twenty he was as a result of intrigues in the remote Chuzhou (滁州, Anhui Province ) was added. Later he had temporarily held the post of Minister of War and was a member of the prestigious Hanlin Academy.

1072 died Ouyang Xiu in Yingzhou ( Anhui Province ).

Work

As a historian Ouyang Xiu gave the New Tang Annals (新唐书, xīn táng shū ), a history of the Five Dynasties (新 五代 史, xīn wǔdài shǐ ) and out a work on bronze and stone inscriptions.

His prose is modeled on Han Yu, a pioneer of the movement literature in the classical style (古文 运动/古文 运动, gǔwén yundong ). Traditionally, Ouyang Xiu counts together with Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Che, Zeng Gong and Wang Anshi to the "eight great prose writers of the Tang and Song period ". In his famous work The Pavilion of the Drunken Old (醉翁 亭 记/醉翁 亭 记, zuìwēng Tingji ) he has described his country reclusive life in the midst of mountains, rivers and people of Chuzhou during the exile. During his voluntary withdrawal of the Ying River in his last years he wrote, however, the story of the quiet scholar Six - One (六 一 居士, Liuyi Jushi ): The first five of the "Six One " stand for the belongings of the poet, namely a library of ten thousand volumes, a collection of ancient stone and bronze inscriptions, a lute, a game of chess and a cup of wine. The sixth "One " is, however, Ouyang Xiu itself in the " Elegy on the autumn Lute" he unsuccessfully tried to point his young servant to the music of decline at the end of the summer, on the in nature everywhere noticeable Shang tone.

Ouyang Xiu's poems are usually held in a relaxed, humorous and self-mocking tone. He used both the Shi- as well as the C - style. In the Shi- poems, he is reduced, true to the model of the middle Tang period, on the essentials and in particular avoids the overloaded bombast of the late Tang became known Ouyang Xiu course for his Ci - poems. Especially his ten poems comprehensive collection beauty of the West Lake (西湖 好, xīhúhǎo ) to sing to the tune of When Picking mulberry (采桑子, cǎisāngzǐ ) contributed to the spread of the genre with.