Yuan Zhen

(Yüan Chen)

(779–831)

   A brilliant and powerful statesman of the TANG DYNASTY, Yuan Zhen strove to reform the governments of two emperors, only to be twice banished from the imperial court for his efforts.With his friend and fellow poet BO JUYI, he advocated a new kind of poetry, simple in style and having as its chief aim social and political reform.While his poetry has declined in popularity over the centuries, Yuan Zhen is best known today as the author of one of the most influential works of prose fiction in Chinese literature, Yingying zhuan (The STORY OF YING-YING).

   Yuan Zhen was born in Xi’an, the imperial capital of Tang China, in 779. His father, Yuan Yuan Kuna, died seven years later, and his mother took the family to live with relatives at Fengsiang in Shensi, a frontier town where the young Yuan Zhen was able to observe firsthand the suffering that military skirmishes and corrupt provincial government imposed on the common people. In the meantime Yuan Zhen’s mother had taken over the boy’s education, and he was learning, among other things, the art of poetry.

   In 793, Yuan Zhen passed the first civil service examination, called ming-ching (“explication of the classics”). He moved back to Xi’an the following year. In 802, he was married, achieved first place in the next civil service examination, and was appointed to his first official post in the imperial library. Here he met fellow poet and bureaucrat Bo Juyi, who became his lifelong friend. Shortly after this, it is believed, Yuan Zhen composed his Story of Ying-ying. In 806, Yuan Zhen received an outstanding score on the chih-k’e tui-ts’e (“palace examination”), the highest of the civil service examinations, monitored by the emperor Hsientung himself. As a result he was given a position close to the emperor, as “Censor of the Left.” Later that same year, however, he was banished from the capital, chiefly because of his presentation of a 10-point plan for reform of the government that angered some of his enemies at court—Yuan Zhen’s Confucian concept of government for the benefit of the people was not always popular among the less idealistic elements in the imperial court. He was sent to take a minor position in Henan; however, when his mother died about this time, Yuan Zhen decided instead to retire and to observe a period of mourning.

   By the time Yuan Zhen emerged from mourning in 809, elements friendlier to him were in power at court, and he was immediately appointed “Inspecting Censor” and sent to investigate allegations of corruption in Tung Ch’uan (in eastern Szechwan). Here he found evidence of rampant corruption in the administration of the military governor, but the officials he accused received only minor reprimands and he was transferred to another provincial post.When he removed a corrupt mayor from office without first consulting the court, Yuan Zhen was finally banished from the court for 10 years. Though his friend Bo Juyi and others appealed to the emperor, the banishment stood. Languishing in minor posts in the provinces, Yuan Zhen spent much of his time editing his own poems (a collection of more than 800) that he completed in 812, and also wrote a number of additional lyrics in the simple style that he and Bo Juyi had adopted. In 821, with the advent of a new emperor, Muzong (Mu-tsung), who had been impressed by his poetry, Yuan Zhen was appointed secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and placed in charge of drafting official proclamations. In 822, he was made chief minister. However, his rivalry with the military leader P’ei Tu, with whom he shared the title of chief minister, ultimately led to his dismissal from office and banishment, once again, to minor posts in the provinces. During these years Yuan Zhen compiled an edition of his collected works, and the following year added an edition of the works of his friend Bo. In 830, he was appointed governor of Wuchang, where he died the next year.His body was returned to Xianyang for burial, and in death Yuan Zhen was given the honorary title of minister of state. While Yuan Zhen’s ardent desire for reform met largely with indifference and opposition at the imperial court, resulting in a series of banishments, his poetry—simple in style but aimed just as directly at reform—was extremely popular in his own day.He was nicknamed “Yuan the Genius” because of his verse, and was especially admired for his use of rhyme. But his poetic reputation has since waned, and it is as a fiction writer that he is best remembered. The Story of Ying-ying, a masterpiece of the new genre of short stories in classical Chinese called chuanqi (ch’uan-ch’i), is a romantic tale of a young woman wooed and then deserted by an ambitious young man,who ultimately wants her again, once she has married someone else. Yuan Zhen would probably have seen the tale as unworthy, since it fails to stress a social purpose. But that, perhaps, is what has made the tale more universally appealing than his poetry.

   Bibliography

   ■ Hightower, James R., trans. “The Story of Ying-ying.” In Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations, edited by Joseph S. M. Lau and Y. M. Ma. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

   ■ Palandri, Angela C. Y. Jung. Yüan Chen. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977.