Ouyang Xiu: Exile, Essays & the Man Who Made Northern Song Literature

Ouyang Xiu (1007 – 1072 AD) (pronounced ‘oh-yang show’) was one of the greatest intellectuals in Chinese history.

He came from poverty to become a high government official and celebrated:

• Writer
• Poet
• Classicist
• Art theorist and connoisseur
• Language reformer
• Calligrapher
• Historian

In 1056, Su Xun (the father of Ouyang’s greatest protégé Su Shi (1037 – 1101 AD)) wrote to Ouyang:

There is not a man in the entire empire, sir, who does not know of your writing.

– Su Xun

Despite this eminence, he was dogged by awful rumours (and bawdy songs about those rumours)…

Let’s look at his life, career, writing, and those rumours.

Contents

Life and career

Ouyang’s ancestral home: Luling

Ancestral homes were an important concept for many Chinese people throughout the centuries. 

The ancestral home of Ōuyáng Xiū (欧阳修), courtesy name Yongshu, was Luling (today’s Ji’an, Jiangxi Province), about 900 miles (or 1,500km) south-west of where he grew up in Mianzhou.

Ouyang only ever travelled to Luling once, to intern his mother’s remains in the family’s ancestral tombs.

However, he still often referred to himself as ‘Ouyang of Luling’ (庐陵欧阳修) in his writing.

Early life

Ouyang was born in Mianzhou (today’s Mianyang, Sichuan Province) during the Song dynasty (960 – 1279 AD).

His father, Ouyang Kuan, was a relatively minor official who died when Ouyang was only four years old. 

Ouyang and his mother then moved to Suizhou (in today’s Hubei Province) to live with Ouyang’s uncle, Ouyang Ye.

He recounts his family’s difficult circumstances in his essay ‘The Seven Sages Painting’ (七贤画序):

卒于任比某十许岁时，家益贫，每岁时，设席祭祀，则张此图于壁，先妣必指某曰：“吾家故物也。” […]又以见吾母少寡而子幼，能克成其家，不失旧物。
I remember that after I turned ten, our family became even poorer. But on festival days, as we held feasts and made sacrifices, we would hang [my late father’s] painting on the wall. My mother would point to it and say: ‘That is our family heirloom.’
[…] Although my mother was widowed at an early age and was left with an infant son, she still managed to keep the family intact and preserve its heirloom.

– Ouyang Xiu, ‘The Seven Sages Painting’

Ouyang lived in Suizhou until he was twenty-one years old. Reflecting on his youth here he later wrote:

予少家汉东，汉东僻陋无学者，吾家又贫无藏书。州南有大姓李氏者，其子尧辅颇好学。予为儿童时，多游其家。见其弊筐贮故书在壁间，发而视之 […] 因乞李氏以归。读之，见其言深厚而雄博…
In my youth I lived east of the Han River. It was a remote and desolate, with no scholars. My family was poor and didn’t have books.

– Ouyang Xiu, ‘Recalling Old Books by Han Wang’ (记旧本韩王后)

However, there was enough culture to capture his attention…

州南有大姓李氏者，其子尧辅颇好学，予为儿童时，多游其家， 见有弊筐贮故书，在壁间，发而视之，得唐《昌黎先生文集》六卷， 脱落颠倒无次序。因乞李氏以归，读之，见其言深厚而雄博。
South of the river, there lived the prominent Li family. Their son Yaofu was devoted to learning. As a boy I often went to their house to play. 
  One day, I found a tattered basket full of old books lodged in the hollow of a wall. I examined them and found six volumes of The Works of Chang Li [Han Yu] […] I asked the Li’s for permission to take them home with me. I read them and found that they were rich and profound, forceful and erudite…

– Ibid.

The tang dynasty writer Han Yu (768 – 824 AD) was one of the most important influences on Ouyang’s life.

年十有七， 试于州，为有司所黜。因取所藏韩氏文复阅之， 则喟然叹曰：“学者当至于是而止尔！”
At the age of seventeen, I sat for the district exams, but was rejected by exam officials. I turned to my copy of Han Yu and re-read it. Overcome with admiration, I exclaimed aloud: “Scholars need look no further than this for a model!“

-Ibid.

The Song dynasties’ meritocracy

Fortunately for Ouyang, Society during the Song dynasty was relatively meritocratic. 

Talent could rise through the ranks based on performance in imperial exams or a good impression made on mentor officials.

This was markedly different from the military aristocratic structure that had dominated during the Tang dynasty (618 – 906 AD) and before.

Furthermore, the emphasis for Song dynasty officials was highly literary. This favoured people like Ouyang. As he put it himself in 1037:

及天下已定，将卒无所用其武，士君子争以文儒进。
All under heaven is stable. Generals’ have no use for their martial valour. Gentlemen now compete to get ahead on the basis of their literary skill and learning.

– Ouyang Xiu, ‘Farewell to the Degree Candidate Tian Hua Upon his Departure to his Parents in Wanzhou‘ (送田画秀才宁亲万州序)

Imperial exams and early career

Ouyang failed the imperial examinations in Suizhou in 1023 (aged seventeen) and 1027 (aged twenty). But in 1030 (aged twenty-three), he passed. 

His first government job was as Prefectural Judge for a Governor of Luoyang (in today’s Henan Province). This was then the second (eastern) capital of the Song dynasty.

Unlike Suizhou, Luoyang was one of the largest and most developed cities in the world at the time. Ouyang later recalled his three years there fondly.

He was then sent to work in the first capital, Kaifeng (also in today’s Henan Province).

Here he was appointed the collator of texts in the Imperial Library for approximately two years.

Trouble at court

In Kaifeng, Ouyang was associated with the politician and scholar Fan Zhongyan (989 – 1052 AD). 

Along with several others, Ouyang and Fan were seen as part of a reformist faction within the government.

In 1035, Fan wrote a series of essays to try and persuade the Renzhong Emperor (r. 1022 – 1063 AD) to implement government bureaucracy reforms. 

In the essays, he levelled charges against the government’s Chief Minister, accusing him of placing his friends in high positions. Fan was demoted as a result of this. Some of his associates expressed their dissatisfaction at this. 

Ouyang protested it by writing an insulting letter to the Chief Minister’s associate, Gao Ruona (997 – 1055 AD).

He accused Gao of failing to denounce the Chief Minister. He then challenged Gao to publish his letter if he was unafraid of his (Gao’s) behaviour.

Gao presented the letter to the government. It showed Ouyang to be in breach of the conduct expected from officials…

He was demoted and sent to Yiling, over 400 miles (approximated 670 km) south east from Kaifeng in 1036.

First exile (1036 – 1043): Yiling and Guanghua (Hubei Province)

Ouyang found Yiling (today’s Yichang, Hubei Province) to be a remote, uncultured place. He was completely unable to understand the local dialect.

However, his workload was relatively light in comparison to life in the capital. He used his time to write and travel to the nearby three gorges region.

Two years later, in 1038, he was reassigned to work in Guanghua (also in today’s Hubei province), which was less remote. It was relatively near Suizhou, where he had grown up. 

Declining favouritism and return to court

In 1040, Ouyang’s mentor Fan Chengyan had reconciled with the Chief Minister he had criticised a few years before.

This led to Fan being promoted to Military Intendant of Shaanxi Province and many of his previously recommended reforms being implemented. 

Fan invited Ouyang to work under him. But Ouyang famously declined Fan’s offer. He felt that it would be taking advantage of Fan as a connection.

In other words, he did not want to behave in the same way he and Fan had criticised others for.

Either way, the emperor soon invited Ouyang back to the capital and appointed him Drafting Official (i.e., the official in charge of drafting policies for the emperor).

In 1044, Fan Chengyan managed to get himself embroiled in new controversies. This led to his (and other reformists’) demotion and exile. Ouyang avoided getting caught up in this. 

However, he found himself dealing with a much more personally damaging scandal…

Niece Zhang’s accusations of ‘incest’

Niece Zhang was the stepdaughter of Ouyang’s sister.

When Ouyang’s brother-in-law died, Ouyang’s sister and Niece Zhang came to live with Ouyang in the capital.

Chang eventually married and – as was the custom – moved into her husband’s household. But sometime later she was accused of having relations with a servant.

During her trial, she claimed to having previously also had relations with Ouyang…

So, in 1045, Ouyang was imprisoned and then put on trial three times, charged with incest.

This was a serious charge that could result in execution. Chinese society had strict rules about marriage, relations between in-laws, and relations between the sexes. 

Marrying a brother’s widow, for example, was considered incestuous.

And a Confucian philosopher had once famously stated to Mencius (372–289 BC) that if one’s sister-in-law was drowning, it would be better to leave her rather that touch her hand.

Ouyang denied the charges and there was no evidence against him.

However, during the proceedings a technicality was found (land purchased under Ouyang’s name with Niece Zhang’s dowry).

Mocking bawdy song (词 [cí]) poems were circulated about Ouyang and anonymously, some falsely in his name.

This was particularly painful for Ouyang because he had written poems about ‘singing girls’ himself in the past (as had many other poets of the time). 

…Last night, in a dream, I made love to her. 
Just like old times.
Then, just as I was happy, 
The cock next door woke me up. 
Everything was quiet
But I could not get fall back asleep…

– Liu Yong, quoted in Hightower, James R., ‘The Songwriter Liu Yung: Part I’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Dec., 1981), pp. 323-376 

This greatly damaged his reputation and career. He was sent into exile once again.

Second exile (1045 – 1054 AD)

Chuzhou (1045 – 1048 AD)

Ouyang was in Chuzhou (in today’s Anhui Province) between the years 1045 and 1048.

Like Yiling, it was a remote, quiet place where he felt isolated from culture and the affairs of the day.

Whilst here, he built a pavilion. He wrote about it 1046, in an essay entitled ‘The Old Drunkard’s Pavilion’ (醉翁亭记 [zuì wēng tíng jì]):

峰回路转，有亭翼然、临于泉上者，醉翁亭也。作亭者谁？山之僧智仙也。名之者谁？太守自谓也。太守与客来饮于此，饮少辄醉，而年又最高，故自号曰醉翁也。醉翁之意不在酒，在乎山水之间也。山水之乐，得之心而寓之酒也。
The road winds around the mountain peaks, then a pavilion appears beside the spring – The Old Drunkard’s Pavilion. 
  Who built it? A monk from the mountains named Zhi Xian.
  Who named it? The Governor named it after himself. 
  The Governor likes to gather here with his friends to drink. It only takes a little drink to get the Governor drunk and he is the eldest of the group, that’s why he calls himself The Old Drunkard.
  However, the Governor’s interest isn’t really in alcohol, it’s in the surrounding landscape – the joy of which he uses wine to lodge in his heart.

– Ouyang Xiu ‘The Old Drunkard’s Pavilion’

The Governor, is described as ‘an old man with a wrinkled face who and white hair who sprawls on the ground’. He is, Ouyang directly states at the end of this piece, ‘Ouyang Xiu of Luling’.

This description has similarities with Ouyang’s comments in a preface of poems by the Buddhist monk Bi Yan in 1043. 

The poet, Ouyang says, ‘had no outlet for his energy’, so he spent his time socializing and ‘drinking and amusing himself until he was soaked with wine, not minding if he tripped and stumbled on the ground.’

Yangzhou (1048 – 1049 AD)

Yangzhou (in today’s Jiangsu Province) lies at the end of the Yangtze River. Ouyang was made governor there in 1048.

During the Song, the Grand Canal (a network of canals connecting Northern and Southern China) had been extended to Yangzhou.

This made it a bustling, wealthy and cultured city. 

This meant Ouyang’s work and social lives were very different from what they had been in Chuzhou.

Yingzhou (1049 – 1052 AD)

Ouyang was made governor of Yingzhou (today’s Fuyang, Anhui Province) in 1049. 

Yingzhou made a deep impression on Ouyang.

After leaving here in 1052, he returned several times in the coming decades. During this time, he had decided he would eventually retire there.

At the end of his time in Yingzhou, Ouyang’s mother – who had accompanied him throughout his career – passed away. This was when he visited their ancestral hometown, Luling, to intern her body in the family’s tomb.

He was invited to return to the capital in the same year.

However, as was traditional for Confucian scholars of the time, he had to spend a set period of time in morning for his mother before resuming public life.

Return to Kaifeng (1054 – 1068 AD) 

Over the next thirteen years, Ouyang worked in several different positions. These include:

• Administrator of imperial exams. In 1057, he famously failed all examination candidates who wrote in the current (or Imperial Academy) style of writing. Angry unsuccessful candidates waited for him after and had to be held back by bodyguards as they cursed him.
• Co-compiler of the New Tang History (along with Song Qi). It was an important political task of everydynasty to write an official history of the dynasties before them. It enabled them to set precedents for their own policies.

Shorty before the Renzhong Emperor’s death in 1063, Ouyang played an important role in ensuring the emperor’s son, Yingzhong (r. 1063 – 1067 AD) was named heir apparent.

Second ‘incest’ charge

Unfortunately for Ouyang (and Yingzhong himself), Yinzhong did not live long.

His death left Ouyang somewhat exposed and in the same year Ouyang’s former Jiang Zhiqi accused Ouyang of having relations with his (Ouyang’s) daughter-in-law.

This charge was also considered ‘incest’ by the law. However, again no evidence was brought forth. Ouyang denied the charges.

The accuser and one co-conspirator were demoted and Ouyang was cleared of the charges.

Ouyang requested to be posted away from the court.

Death in Yingzhou (1071 AD)

After brief stints as an envoy to Taiyuan (in today’s Shanxi Province) and as a magistrate in Caizhou (today’s Runan County in Zhumadian, Henan Province), he retired to Yinzhou in 1070.

六一居士初谪滁山，自号醉翁。既老而衰且病，将退休于颍水之上，则又更号六一居士。客有问曰：“六一，何谓也？”居士曰：“吾家藏书一万卷，集录三代以来金石遗文一千卷，有琴一张，有棋一局，而常置酒一壶。”客曰：“是为五一尔，奈何？”居士曰：“以吾一翁，老于此五物之间，是岂不为六一乎？”
When the Retired Scholar of Six Ones was first banished to the Chu mountains he named himself The Old Drunkard. But now that he is aged, weak, and sickly, and about to retire to the banks of the Ying River. So he has changed his name to the Retired Scholar of Six Ones.
A visitor asked: “What does ‘six ones’ mean?’
The Retired Scholar answered: In my house I have a large collection of books, a compendium of bronze and stone inscriptions dating to the ancient dynasties, a zither, a chessboard, and a jug of wine that is always set out in front of me.’
The visitor remarked: “That only makes ‘five ones’.”
The scholar replied: “I am a single man growing old amongst these five possessions. Doesn’t that add up to six?”

– Ouyang Xiu, ‘The Retired Scholar of Six Things’ (六一居士传)

Ouyang passed away in 1071.

Ouyang’s literary output

Ouyang was one of Chinese literature’s great all-rounders. Su Shi once wrote:

[Ouyang was] like Han Yu in his discussions of the Way, like Lu Zhi in that of human nature, like Sima Qian in his historical writings, and like Li Bai in writing poetry and rhapsodies.

– Su Shi

Prose

Ouyang has long been most famous for his prose writing. 

Today, he is remembered as one of the Eight Great Tang and Song Dynasty (prose) masters (唐宋八大家).

And during his lifetime he clearly felt that his prose was his greatest talent.

His wrote prose in many forms, but his writings can generally be divided into three main categories:

• Informal (or ‘casual’ essays)
• Formal memorials/essays (including historical writing)
• Grave inscriptions (墓志铭) and epitaphs (墓表) (the only difference is that the former included concluding rhymed lines of praise for the subject).

His informal essays are highly readable and memorable even to modern audiences (who largely read them in their modern vernacular [baihua] versions).

These pieces, originally shared amongst his peers, likely contributed to his prestige as an official during his lifetime – hence the demand for his writings in the other categories.

(Ouyang himself noted his frustration in dealing with requests for grave inscriptions and epitaphs. The families of the deceased were occasionally critical of their content.)

In his informal writing, Ouyang had more freedom of form and content matter. This allowed him to express his unique thoughts and insights.

Style

Writing mode

Ouyang could write in all prose modes popular in his time.

In the centuries leading up to his era, the leading mode of writing in education and official work was ‘parallel prose’ (骈文) (also known as the ‘six-four’ (liu-si)style).

This was a highly formal and structured way of writing, requiring set sentence lengths and rhyming patterns. 

This was surpassed in the early Song period by the current style (世文), introduced by the influential writer Yang Yi (972 – 1020 AD). 

This was also a highly poetic, literary writing mode. It reached its height in popularity in the 1030s. 

(Ouyang himself used it, like his fellow candidates, to pass the imperial examinations in 1030 AD.)

During the 1040s, when Ouyang was working as an official, the unorthodox style(also known as the imperial academy style) became popular. 

This was a verbose and eccentric style that often featured many dense and novel phrases.

Meanwhile, earlier writers, including Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan (773 – 819 AD), had helped develop a reformed style of writing with their ‘ancient prose’ (古文) movement.

This style was modelled on ancient Confucian writings. To the uninitiated, it was dense, terse and archaic. 

Behind its use was the notion that style was secondary to content – i.e., the opposite (its advocates felt) of parallel prose and the current style.

Ancient prose style was more flexible and straightforward than competing styles. Despite its name, it also contained elements of more recent language forms.

Ouyang not only helped develop the mechanics of the style. He also enforced its use (over current style) across the empire. 

When he was appointed Administrator of Examinations in 1057, he failed all candidates who did not use it. 

An angry crowd of students surrounded and cursed him for this. His guards nearly lost control of the situation and a funeral ode was sent to his home.

However, the style remained in use. It wasn’t until the 20^th century, that writers and intellectuals helped bring about a reform to vernacular Chinese.

Tone of voice

Many of Ouyang’s most famous informal pieces are written in a personal and playful manner.

His conversational, slightly eccentric voice often dwells on seemingly mundane matters to illustrate wider points.

But these points are rarely as moral or sombre as, for example, those found in Han Yu’s writings. 

Instead, they are often surprising, amusing, or simply interesting.

These enquiries into novel observations (of principles, paradoxes, dichotomies, etc.) are often sustained by Ouyang’s agreeable, inquisitive and optimistic character.

Example piece: ‘The Old Drunkard’s Pavillion’

Ouyang’s famous ‘Drunkard’s Pavillion’ is a charmingly self-deprecating meditation on life, time, and perspective.

He introduces the essay’s subject (the governor, aka old drunkard) at the beginning of the essay and then makes a series of wry observations about his behaviours and emotions.

It’s only in the essay’s very last words that he reveals that he himself, the writer of the piece, is the governor. 

So, in the final moment, readers can more objectively evaluate the description of the governor by understanding that it was a subjective one.

This means that readers’ view of the governor is, like the surrounding scenery, noise, light and shadows described in the piece, shifted before their eyes.

And, like the governor does with his guests, they too can understand more than one perspective of the joy depicted in the scene.

Example piece: ‘The Fault-Finding Studio’

Ouyang playfully examines subjectivity and perceptions in ‘The Fault-Finding Studio’. 

This short piece opens by introducing a simple and profound principle: that measurement or perception (understanding) requires stillness (clarity or inner calm).

He then discusses why this matters: It helps ensure one make correct moral judgements. In other words, it helps one follow the Way (Dao), that key Confucian principle.

Finally, he applies the abstract to the physical and personal world by discussing his studio and its name.

The elegant article is a great example of Confucian reasoning, where meaning is elegantly layered and examined to illustrate a principle.

It also reflects an almost Chan Buddhist attachment to silence and solitude.

Poetry

Although he saw it as secondary to his prose writing, Ouyang was a talented and influential poet.

His poetic oeuvre covers all of the major Chinese poetic forms of his day. But most of his best work was done in the shi form of poetry.

As with his prose, he favoured content over style. He often used relatively straightforward language to present novel and enchanting imagery and ideas.

Ronald C. Egan wrote:

A reading of all of Ou-yang’s poetry shows that in any given period in his life he wrote in several different styles. […]
   [t]here is, however, one general predisposition or attitude Ou-yang held concerning poetry that should be noted […]. It is not the affirmation of certain poetic values as much as a negation of a particular one. It is his belief that the kind of poetry that typified by the His-k’un school of versification is bad and even morally wrong, to the extent that it channels men’s energies into frivolous expression. The His-k’un style was the poetic counterpart of the Current Style in prose.

– Ronald C. Egan, The Literary Words of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007 – 72) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 78

Shi (诗) poems

Shi (sometimes translated simply as ‘poetry’ or ‘classical poetry’) is the most popular form of Chinese classical poetry. It comes in two main types: 

• Regulated poetry (lüshi [律诗]): This alternates between combinations ofparallel and non-parallel lines to create structured (or regulated) poems.
• Unregulated (or ancient-style) poetry (gushi [古诗]): This generally has no regulations with regards to parallel lines, rhyme schemes, etc.

Ouyang’s unregulated/ancient style verse was his most successful kind of poetry. 

As with his prose, he often explored novel, wide-ranging themes and imagery that he avoided in his regulated pieces. (The latter were often used for – and therefore limited by – social purposes).

He also liked to play with perspective and layers of meaning, as in his prose. 

But what separates his unregulated poetry (and fu – see below) from his prose is his frequent emphasis on qi (奇) (the ‘strange’ or ‘extraordinary’).

This meant that many have a lighter-hearted and less moralistic tone than many of his other writings.

Ronald C. Egan remarks that ‘many of Ou-yang’s finest poetic achievements[in shi and fu poems]’ come down to a trait ‘[which is] a certain boldness of imagination that allows the poet to transcend his own limited perspective on the world.’

Influence of Tang shi

By the early Song, the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) was already well established as the golden era of shi poetry.

Like many literati, Ouyang cherished the work of High Tang period’s (ca. 712 – 756 AD) two greatest poets, Li Bai (ca. 701 – 762) and Du Fu (712 – 770).

(The latter would go on to become almost an icon of the literati class with the subsequent generation of Northern Song intellectuals, many of whom were Ouyang’s protégés.)

Even though, Han Yu (768 – 824) was not primarily famous for his shi poetry, Ouyang clearly cherished it.

Ronald C. Egan also identifies the late Tang poets Bai Juyi (772 – 846 AD) and Du Mu (803 – 852 AD) as clear influences on Ouyang. 

Bai’s personable voice and tendency towards levity (including via self-deprecation), as well as his range in subject matters, anticipate Ouyang’s approach to poetry.

And Du Mu’s nostalgia and strong sense of the transience of happiness align well with Ouyang’s poetic instincts.

By contrast, he was disinterested in the shi of the following generation, such as Wen Tingyun (812 – 866) and Li Shangyin (813 – 858). 

These poets were famous for their ornate, elaborate verse on love and longing.

Ci (词) poems

Ci (translated variously as ‘songs’ or ‘lyric poetry’) are poems originally set to popular tunes. 

They feature longer sentences and fixed rhyme patterns (depending on the particular tune they accompany). 

The Song dynasty is famous for this form of poetry. 

(Their English translation as ‘songs’/’song poetry’ is purely coincidental.)

Whilst ci are largely enjoyed as poems that are read today, they were originally commonly sang in inns and private residences.

Many were compiled into written collections, but authorship can be uncertain or unknown in some cases. 

Either way, as with other forms of prose and poetry, Ouyang’s originality formed a new path within the era’s conventional mode that in turn shaped that mode.

One of his specialities was to focus on vignettes rather than more structured, condensed narratives.

Unlike his shi and fu, these vignettes are almost invariable solemn yet focused on themes unmentionable in other writings, such as seduction, longing, and female’s feelings.

He also – like most ci writers – often used colloquial language that wasn’t used in other writings.

Zeng Cao (? – 1155 AD), the compiler of the Music Bureau’s Elegant Ci (乐府雅词), wrote that Ouyang was ‘the Confucian of his age’ (一代儒宗). 

This image obviously didn’t fit well with many of the ci attributed to Ouyang. 

So, Zeng declared that all ci not included in Ouyang’s own official collected works were falsely attributed to him. 

(This argument played upon the fact that it was widely known Ouyang had been slandered with some purposely falsely attributed ci during his lifetime.)

Fu (赋) poems

Fu (often translated as ‘rhapsodies’) are rhyming prose-poems that are at once more descriptive and freer than other types of poetry. 

During Ouyang’s lifetime, fu were commonly composed by literati (and even required in the imperial examinations) but not as valued as they would later become. 

(In fact, aside from some works by the Du Fu, the Tang dynasty had been similarly unimportant for this genre.)

Ouyang only included five of his fu pieces in his compiled literary works.

However, his fu were innovative and highly influential. 

Before Ouyang, fu were often highly regulated. He brought the artform closer to prose writing. 

Contemporaries even referred to his fu as wenfu (文赋) (prose rhapsodies).

The following generation of writers, especially Su Shi, would develop this genre further. 

As with prose, once freed from constraints of structure and style, fu could be composed in a freer and more expressive way.

Calligraphy

Calligraphy was an important part of Ouyang’s life. He practised and wrote about it a lot. 

And it was a popular part of life in Song dynasty intellectual and artistic circles.

However, he was not (and still isn’t) known as a great Song dynasty calligrapher. He wrote in his piece Calligraphy Exercises (试笔):

[…] 明窗净几，笔砚纸墨皆极精良，亦自是人生一乐事。能得此乐者甚稀，其不为外物移其好者 […] 余晚知此趣，恨字体不工，不能到古人佳处。若以为乐，则自给有余。
[…] to have a clean desk beside a bright window with a brush, inkstone, paper and ink, all of high quality, is one of life’s great pleasures. But few men are able to appreciate this pleasure 
[…] It was late in my life that I understood its charm, and unfortunately my calligraphy is not skilful and I shall never reach the heights of the ancient masters. But if it gives me pleasure, that’s enough.

– Ouyang Xiu, ‘Calligraphy Exercises‘

He had about one thousand ink rubbings of ancient inscriptions. Copies of this collection were published as A Record of The Collection of Antiquities (集古录). 

This contained many of his colophons that commented on the pieces. And it was the first academic work on China’s stone and bronze inscriptions. 

There were two calligraphers whose work he collected the most.

The first was the Tang dynasty official Yan Zhenqing (709 – 785 AD), who was unjustly executed by a political rival. Ouyang remarked of him:

颜公忠义之节，皎如日月，其为人尊严刚劲，像其笔画。
Yan was loyal and had integrity, this shone as brightly as the sun or the moon. And his character was reverent, strict, steadfast, and forceful, just like his calligraphy.

– Ouyang Xiu

The other was Yan Zhenqing’s calligraphic follower/heir, Liu Gongquan (778 – 865 AD).

As with Yan, Liu’s refined and upright style was interpreted by many to be a reflection of his personality.

Ouyang also admired the great calligrapher Cai Xiang (1012 – 1067 AD), who like him came from a humble background to reach the heights of government.

He remarked that he felt Cai’s best writing was done in running script (followed by small-standard script and then cursive script).