Pu Daoyuan

Life

Early in life, he served as a commandery school director, but after leaving the post he returned home and thereafter refused to discuss pursuing office. Late in life, he was summoned as a recluse to the Hanlin Academy and transferred to the post of Doctor at the National Academy, from which he withdrew after a little more than a year. He was later appointed Educational Intendant of Confucian Studies in Shaanxi but declined to take up the post, thereafter living at leisure among the forests and springs.

His official career also included service as Compiler in the Hanlin Academy's National History Institute, as an Attendant for Hanlin Literary Affairs, and as Doctor at the National Academy; the first post began in the second year of Huangqing (1313). When ill, he refused medicine, drank wine, and died while composing poetry. Because his second son, Pu Ji, became prominent, Pu Daoyuan was posthumously granted the office of Junior Supervisor in the Secretariat.

His father was Pu Zhengze and his father-in-law was He Kunzhi; his wife was He (1262–1331), and he had a son, Pu Ji, as well as a second son, Pu Shu.

Learning and writings

Pu Daoyuan had an exceptional memory and devoted himself to the learning of the Lian–Luo Confucians; his scholarship also brought the learning of principle (xingli) into the prose of the court. His remaining writings were compiled by his second son, Pu Ji, as the 26-juan Xianju conggao (《閒居叢稿》).

Recorded pieces include prefaces, biographies, epitaph inscriptions, accounts of conduct, colophons, farewell poems and prefaces, and elegiac poems and lyrics. Huang Jin wrote a preface to his collected writings, praising the way he brought the learning of principle into court prose and likening it to fine gold and beautiful jade whose radiance required no forging or carving to shine forth.