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Biography of Yüan Mei
Name: Yüan Mei
Birth Date: 1716
Death Date: 1798
Place of Birth: N/A
Nationality: Chinese
Gender: Male
Occupations: author
Yüan Mei
Yüan Mei (1716-1798), Chinese author, was one of the great poets of the Ch'ing dynasty. He is especially noted for his cultivation of naturalness and individuality in his poetry and criticism as well as in his life.A native of Hangchow, Chekiang, Yüan Mei was a precocious boy who earned his hsiu-ts'ai degree at the age of eleven. He received his chin-shih, the highest academic degree, at 23 and was retained in the imperial Hanlin Academy. But failing to pass the examination on the Manchu language, which was his assigned subject of study, he was released from the academy in 1742 and successively appointed to several districts in Kiangsu province as magistrate.In 1748 Yüan retired from government service and in the next year moved to his newly acquired garden in Nanking known as Sui-yüan, the "Garden of Contentment." The garden was once owned by the …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…uuml;an Mei's voluminous writings are a book of ghost stories and a cookbook entitled Sui-yüan shih-tan (Sui-yüan's Menu). The latter interest indicates a Chinese hedonist's unashamed delight in good food. Similarly, Yüan Mei was fond of female company, and in his old age he was surrounded by female disciples. Though he courted notoriety in his time by his sponsorship of female poetic talent, he was a humane person who believed that women as well as men should develop their sensibility and intellect to the full for the enrichment of society and culture. Further Reading The standard biography in English is Arthur Waley, Yüan Mei: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet (1956), which contains many examples of Yüan's poetry and prose in translation. James J. Y. Liu, The Art of Chinese Poetry (1962), gives a good exposition of Yüan Mei's poetic theories.
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