Meng Haoran

Meng Haoran (689 or 691-740) was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty and one of the first major figures of the early Tang poetic tradition. He wrote in Classical Chinese, and his landscape poetry became a model for later writers. Outside China he is less famous than Li Bai or Du Fu, but he helps explain how the lyric tradition of the period took shape.

He was born in Xiangyang, in what is now Hubei Province, and spent almost all his life there. He hoped for a career in government, but it went poorly. He passed the Jinshi examination late, around the age of 39, and his only post came three years before his death. According to a tradition preserved in historical accounts, a line in one of his poems angered Emperor Xuanzong, who sent him away from the court. He resigned after less than a year, partly because of his aloof and proud temperament. He also made a brief visit to Chang'an, where his friend Wang Wei hosted him.

His poems draw on the places around him: the landscapes, history and legends of his home region, including Nanshan, or South Mountain, where his family lived, and Lumen Shan, where he briefly retreated like a hermit. He is often paired with Wang Wei, with whom he shared a friendship and an interest in landscape. Where Wang dwelt on the empty natural world and solitude, Meng turned to close-up details and human life: villagers returning home, fishermen, hermits barely glimpsed. His language is plain, close to everyday speech, yet carefully crafted.

His reputation grew over time. Contemporaries such as Li Bai and Du Fu wrote poems in his honor, and the anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems includes a substantial number of his works. His quatrain Spring Morning is among the best-known Tang poems, partly because it opens a widely used anthology for beginners. Later critics praised his inventiveness but debated whether his subjects lacked depth, while his approach to landscape shaped younger poets, including Wang Wei.