Dugu Ji

Life

His father was Dugu Tongli. His sons were Dugu Lang and Dugu Yu, and his niece was Li Ying. In 754, the thirteenth year of Tianbao, he took the Daoju examination, achieved a high result in the policy essay, and passed the Dongxiao Xuanjing category; the examination designations also include the jinshi category.

He was appointed County Magistrate of Huayin. When the An Lushan rebellion broke out, he fled south; during the Zhide era under Emperor Suzong, he took refuge in Yuezhou and served in the staffs of the Zhejiang Eastern Circuit and the Jianghuai Area Command. In 758 he served as a jiedushi aide in the Zhejiang Eastern Circuit; in 760 he was a Left Jinwu Guard officer and secretary to Li Huan, commander of the Jianghuai area, a post also styled wei bing cao canjun (衛兵曹參軍).

In 762 he became magistrate of Huzhou; in 763 he was summoned as Left Remonstrator, was promoted in 764 to Erudite of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, and later served as Assistant Director in the Ministries of Rites and Personnel. In 768 he took office in Haozhou, the title being given variously as judge and governor; in 770 he became governor of Shuzhou, and his administrative performance brought him the concurrent title jiaoxiao sifeng langzhong (檢校司封郎中) and the gold-and-purple insignia. In the eighth year of Dali (773), or the ninth year in another reckoning, he moved to Changzhou as governor; he died in the twelfth year (777), in the fourth month, at the age of fifty-three.

Literary work and thought

While traveling in Liang and Song, he befriended Gao Shi, Jia Zhi, and Chen Jian; he also exchanged poems and prose with Cen Shen and Chang Gun. He was noted for filial and fraternal devotion, for recognizing and supporting younger talents, and for writing that clarified good and evil; he excelled in argument. Alongside Xiao Yingshi, Li Hua, and Jia Zhi, he helped promote classical prose and became a pioneer of the Tang classical-prose movement. Liang Su was his student; Zhu Juchuan and Cui Yuanhan were also among those who came from his circle, and he was hailed as a wenbo, a master of letters.

His prose aimed to establish norms, admonish the world, praise the worthy, and restrain evil, and was especially strong in argument. Later critics praised its breadth and concision, directness and tact, and argumentative force without ornament; another critic found it lacking in ease and harmony. His poetics upheld the principle of yuanqing qimili; his poetry was praised for its archaic high style and distance from worldly dust, while another assessment called his poetic brush exceptionally elevated and ranked him among the great poets of the mid-Tang. Reception of his collected poems was mixed: one assessment counted nearly eighty poems, found many cumbersome passages, but considered the best close to Yuan Daozhou and cautioned against discarding his work.

Works

He wrote *Biling ji* (《毘陵集》), a collection of twenty juan that survives. *Quan Tang shi* includes two juan of his poetry; supplementary poems are counted as either four or two in different tallies. Among his individual works, he composed *Song Li Bai zhi Cao'nan xu* (《送李白之曹南序》), and wrote epitaphs for Dugu Yu, Dugu Tongli, and Cui, the wife of Dugu Wensu; an epitaph for him was composed by Cui Youfu.