Tao Yuan Ming

Paper Summary:

This paper refers to several of Stephen Owen's translations of Tao Yuanming's poems. The paper indicates that however much the poet has favoured his leaving official life for the countryside that he does have moments of wondering if his decision was correct or just seeing that the village is merely different from that of which he grew tired in an educated profession.

From the Paper:

"Tao Yuanming (365-427 AD) - an Idyllic Retirement in the Countryside, and More. Introduction The man remembered as Tao Qian was born to a minor gentry family, perhaps part of the Tao clan, and held a number of minor civil service posts before deciding to retire to a village. Much of his work points to the circumstances that encouraged this rejection of official life, not through any particular expectation of it, but in a spirit of glorifying the individual. He has known well what was expected of a person of his background, as an educated Chinese, who would normally prefer a life of the towns."

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