Mèng Hàorán 孟浩然 (689–740)
The High-Táng Xiāngyáng 襄陽 hermit-poet whose contemplative landscape verse is conventionally paired with Wáng Wéi 王維 in the WángMèng 王孟 couplet. Hàorán 浩然 was both his given name and his zì. Native of Xiāngyáng 襄陽 (modern Xiāngyáng in Húběi).
The principal source for his biography is Wáng Shìyuán’s 王士源 Mèng Hàorán jí xù 孟浩然集序 (preface to KR4c0025), composed ca. 745, five years after Mèng’s death. From it we learn: gǔmào shūqīng, fēngshén sǎnlǎng 骨貌淑清風神散朗 (clear and composed in person, free and bright in spirit); a lifelong refusal of office, broken only by one disastrous attempt at the examinations in Kāiyuán 16 (728) at age 40 — when he was famously summoned to Xuánzōng’s private apartment on Wáng Wéi’s introduction and recited the Suì mù guī Nánshān 歲暮歸南山 with the deprecating line bù cái míng zhǔ qì 不才明主棄 (“the talentless are cast off by the enlightened ruler”), provoking the emperor to dismiss him as too pessimistic — and a second brief attempt under the recommendation of Shānnán cǎifǎngshǐ Hán Cháozōng 韓朝宗, foiled when Mèng prioritized a drinking party with friends over the requested appointment audience.
Death in Kāiyuán 28 (740) at age 52 suì of a back-abscess (jízhěn fābèi 疾疹發背) aggravated by his refusal to abstain from forbidden seafood at a Xiāngyáng banquet honoring Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡 on the latter’s visit. Lǐ Bái’s 李白 Sòng Mèng Hàorán zhī Guǎnglíng 送孟浩然之廣陵 and Wáng Wéi’s Kū Mèng Hàorán 哭孟浩然 are the principal contemporary tributes.
His extant collection is the Mèng Hàorán jí KR4c0025 in 4 juǎn. With Wáng Wéi the founder of the High-Táng shānshuǐ tiányuán 山水田園 (landscape-and-farmstead) school; his Chūn xiǎo 春曉 (“Dawn in Spring”) is among the most-memorized poems in the entire pre-modern Chinese tradition.
CBDB confirms 689–740 (cbdbId 93956), consistent with the catalog meta and Wáng Shìyuán’s age figure.