Meng Haoran

Life

Early in life he lived in seclusion at Lumen Mountain and later at the estate of his ancestral home. He remained a commoner throughout his life. Apart from periods of seclusion in Xiangyang, he travelled widely—east to the sea, west to Ba and Shu, and south to Wu and Yue—and left poems along the way.

In Kaiyuan 16 (728) he went to Chang’an to sit for the jinshi examination but failed and returned to Xiangyang; at the Imperial Academy, a poem he composed won the admiration of everyone present. Although known for his reclusion, he never wholly abandoned hopes of office; this feeling appears strongly in some poems and only weakened late in life.

The story that he met Emperor Xuanzong in Chang’an circulated widely, but critical examination has found it quite unreliable. Between Kaiyuan 22 and 24, Han Chaozong, then an inspector of the Shannan East Circuit, recommended him for an imperial audience; Meng was drinking with friends and failed to attend, so the opportunity came to nothing.

In Kaiyuan 25 (737), Zhang Jiuling became—or, in another account, was demoted to—Changshi of Jingzhou and appointed Meng as a congshi, or staff officer. Meng later returned home: one account places his return in the following year, while the office chronology extends the appointment to Kaiyuan 27 (739). He accompanied Zhang on inspections, sacrifices at mountains and rivers, hunting excursions, and poetic exchanges.

Meng exchanged farewell poetry at Yellow Crane Tower with Li Bai and exchanged poems and prose with He Zhizhang, Wang Wei, and others. In Kaiyuan 28 (740), Wang Changling passed through Xiangyang and the two met with great pleasure. Meng was recovering from an illness on his back; after eating fresh food, the illness flared up, and he died at the Nanyuan of Yecheng.

Poetry

Meng was an early figure of the Tang landscape-poetry tradition and a representative poet of the High Tang landscape-and-pastoral school. His style was close to Wang Wei’s; the two were celebrated together as Wang–Meng.

His verse excelled at depicting landscapes and was noted for its quiet, lucid, plain style. Critics generally regarded his five-character old-style and regulated verse as stronger, while considering his long seven-character poems more even in pace. He was praised in his own time: Du Fu commended the reach and lasting transmissibility of his poetry, while Pi Rixiu admired its ability to respond to scenes without resorting to eccentric artifice and to generate an expansive energy.

Meng repeatedly visited Jiangxia, where he hosted guests and saw friends off at the Yellow Crane Tower, drinking and composing poetry. Poems associated with the tower include 《江上別流人》, 《鸚鵡洲送王九之江左》, and 《送元公歸鄂渚》; the Ezhou Miscellaneous Poems Stele preserves four of his poems.

Writings

His surviving collection is known as 《孟浩然詩集》, also referred to as 《孟襄陽集》. In the fourth year of Tianbao, Wang Shiyuan arranged the poems in three juan, and the collection survives.

The Complete Tang Poems preserves two juan of his poetry; 《全唐詩外編》 and 《全唐詩續拾》 add two poems and six fragmentary lines. The earliest surviving edition is a Shu engraving of the Song period. Editions printed from Ming copies in 《四部叢刊》 and 《四部備要》 became standard, and later annotated editions include Li Jingbai’s 《孟浩然詩集校注》, Xu Peng’s 《孟浩然集校注》, and Tong Peiji’s 《孟浩然詩集箋注》.