Han Yu - Thoughts and Beliefs

Thoughts and Beliefs

"Han Yu is generally considered the greatest master of classical prose in the Tang. He was an important Confucian Intellectual and served as the sponsor of many literary figures of the turn of the ninth century. Although he was Meng Jiao's strongest supporter, Han Yu was himself a very different poet. Han Yu wrote in many modes, often with discursiveness and experimental daring. He was "a Confucian thinker and was deeply opposed to Buddhism, a religion that was then popular in the court. Han Yu came close to being executed in 819 for sending a letter to the emperor in which he denounced "the elaborate preparations being made by the state to receive the Buddha's fingerbone, which he called 'a filthy object' and which he said should be 'handed over to the proper officials for destruction by water and fire to eradicate forever its origin'. He believed that literature and ethics were intertwined, and he led a revolution in prose style against the formal ornamentation then popular."

Han Yu advocated the personal assimilation of Confucian values through the Classics, making them part of one's life. He also championed what came to be called "old style prose," breaking free of the stylized formality of much Tang prose to a kind of writing more suited to argumentation and the expression of ideas.