Yao He

Life

Yao Chong was among Yao He’s ancestors; the genealogical tradition describes Yao He both as Yao Chong’s great-grandson and as his great-grandnephew. His father is named as Yao 閛 or 闬 and had served as magistrate of Linhe in Xiangzhou. His wife was Lu Qi (盧綺, 792–850), his son was Yao Qian (姚潛, 821–865), his father-in-law was Lu Zhao (盧肇), and his sons-in-law included Li Pin (李頻) and Guo Tu (郭圖). His place of death is given as Wannian, and his burial place as Henan.

In Yuanhe 11 (816), he passed the jinshi examination and was appointed xiaoshu lang (校書郎); he served on the staff of Tian Hongzheng, military governor of Weibo, then became wugong zhubu (武功主簿) and later held the posts of magistrate of Wannian and Fuping (萬年、富平尉). During Baoli 2 (826), he became an Investigating Censor (監察御史) and was soon assigned to the Eastern Capital; he then served as Palace Censor (殿中侍御史), Vice Director in the Ministry of Revenue (戶部員外郎), and prefect of Jinzhou (金州刺史).

He later held the offices of Director in the Ministry of Justice (刑部郎中), Director in the Ministry of Revenue (戶部郎中), Counsellor-in-Remonstrance (諫議大夫), and Palace Remonstrant (給事中); in 834, he left the Ministry of Justice post to serve as prefect of Hangzhou. While he was serving as a remonstrance official, local people complained that the Superintendent of Oxen and Sheep had seized their fields. The emperor ordered Zhu Chou to review the case, but Zhu returned the land to the superintendent; Yao He impeached him and exposed the private dealings, and the land was restored to the people. In 839, Yao He became surveillance commissioner of the Shan-Guo circuit; late in life he served as Secretary Supervisor (秘書省少監) and, during the Huichang era, as Secretary Supervisor (秘書監), receiving the posthumous name Yi.

Poetry and literary achievement

Yao He was chiefly a writer of five-character regulated verse. His poetry is described as robust yet finely worked, rounded and polished, and his thirty-poem sequence *Written in Wugong County* (《武功縣中作》) is regarded as representative; his manner became known as the Wugong style. He often drew on immediate objects—flowers, bamboo, cranes, monks, zithers, medicines, tea, and wine—and used small scenes to express a free and unrestrained sensibility.

His style was close to Jia Dao’s but generally plainer and more accessible, and the two were known together as “Yao and Jia” or “Jia and Yao.” Yao He was associated with the late-Tang school of painstaking composition and was regarded as one of its leading figures. He was a friend of Jia Dao, moved among Ma Dai, Fei Guanqing, Yin Yaofan, and Zhang Ji, and was regarded by Li Pin as a teacher. His poetic reputation led contemporaries to regard him as a model of literature; the Southern Song Four Lings particularly admired his poetry, while the late-Song Jianghu school was also said to have drawn from it. Later critics praised its purity and refined correctness, but also faulted its narrow range and restricted scope.

Works

Yao He compiled the *Jixuan ji* (《極玄集》) in two juan, selecting one hundred poems by twenty-one poets including Wang Wei, Zu Yong, and Qian Qi; ninety-nine of those poems survive. His transmitted works include the ten-juan *Yao He shiji* (《姚合詩集》) and the one-juan *Shili* (《詩例》); a ten-juan *Yao Shaojian ji* (《姚少監集》) was rearranged in the Song, and the title *Yao Shaojian shiji* (《姚少監詩集》) is also found. The *Quan Tang shi* preserves seven juan of his poetry.