Drinking, thinking, and writing: Ruan Ji and the culture of his era

A leading intellectual of a critical formative period in Chinese culture, Ruan Ji (210-263) is also a controversial figure since his time owing to ideological bias as well as the complexity and elusiveness of his personality and writings. He deserves a comprehensive study so that his contributions to the rise of Neo-Daoism, the development of five-character line poetry, and the initiation and spread of a behavioral norm for the scholar-official class are fully assessed and appreciated. This dissertation presents an integrated study of him, with a focus on his philosophy, life style, and poetic works.;The introduction reviews available scholarship on him and outlines the historical and intellectual backgrounds of his era. Outlandish as he may seem to his contemporaries, he is nevertheless a product of new cultural trends of the time. There are five chapters in all. The first three examine his philosophical beliefs, political career, and life style. Just as his rediscovery of the Zhuang Zi advanced Neo-Daoism to a new phase, his anti-ritualistic life style under the Daoist influence injected new elements into the values of the scholar-official class. A critical reading of texts by and about him shows that he, while in the center of a political storm, was actually an onlooker of the period's factional politics.;The last two chapters establish him as both a successor to a rich tradition and founder of a new poetic genre. Ruan Ji rebelled against the Confucian poetic tradition with his Yonghuai poetry, which began a tradition of private poetry and helped five-character line poetry reach its maturity. His works demonstrate an intricate intertextual relationship with previous works, the analysis of which reveals some interesting modes of poetic influence.;The conclusion explores his cultural legacy. Admired and emulated, Ruan Ji became the symbol of a life style that provided scholar-officials an alternative code of behavior beside the dominant Confucian code. His poetry influenced some of China's best poets, including Tao Qian (372-427) and Li Bai (701-762).