Li Qunyu

Life

In his youth he enjoyed playing the sheng, was skilled in calligraphy, withdrew into mountains and forests, and worked assiduously at poetry. Of an unrestrained temperament, he disliked official advancement and made verse his chosen way of life. Friends and relatives urged him to sit for the examinations; he made only one attempt and later lived in seclusion in Lizhou for ten years.

At the beginning of the Kaicheng era he traveled east to Wu and Yue and also entered the Three Gorges. During the Huichang era he stayed in Pei Xiu's Hunan headquarters; he later traveled south to Guangzhou and Guizhou, attached himself to Li Pin, the military governor of Lingnan, and returned to Lizhou. He then traveled east again to Hongzhou, returning home by way of Yuanzhou and Liling, and suffered from the illness known as xiaoke (消渴).

In 854, the eighth year of Emperor Xuanzong's Dazhong era, he walked to the capital and presented 300 poems. On the recommendation of Linghu Tao and Pei Xiu, he was appointed a proofreader at the Hongwen Institute. His career titles also include a Palace Library proofreader and a post in the Ministry of Rites' Office of Guests.

He requested leave to return east soon after taking office; the interval before an aggrieved return home is also given as four years. He died in distress, with Hongzhou also named as his place of death. In 900, Emperor Zhaozong posthumously awarded him the jinshi degree.

He exchanged poems with Du Mu, Yao He, Fang Gan, Li Pin, and Duan Chengshi, among others.

Poetry and works

Li Qunyu was skilled in calligraphy and poetry. The appointment edict praised his freedom among hills and ravines and his expression of feeling in song, and described his literary brilliance as exceptional. His five-character verse was praised as incisive and his seven-character verse as flowing and elegant; many lines became widely recited. Zhang Wei placed him in the inner circle of the “Broadly Learned and Grandly Elevated” category in the Poet-Guest Map.

Later criticism was divided. Some praised the beauty of his verse and the force of his talent, singled out his long five-character poems and his seven-character jueju, and even judged his five-character old-style verse superior to Sikong Tu's. Others found his pen technically clumsy overall, with few passages of complete excellence; they considered his old-style five-character verse plain in manner but seldom incisive, criticized its lack of variation, and compared it to the Wen–Li manner while also noting the legacy of the Qi–Liang period.

He is credited with the Li Qunyu Collection. The transmitted titles also include Li Qunyu shi in three juan and Houji in five juan; both are extant. The Complete Tang Poems preserves three juan of his verse, and the Supplement to the Complete Tang Poems adds one poem.