Li Mengyang

A Chinese poet of the mid-Ming Dynasty. His pen name was Xianji and his pen name was Kongtong. He was from Qingyang (Shaanxi Province) and was a Jinshi (official scholar) in 1493 (the 6th year of the Hongzhi era). As a bureaucrat, his impulsive behavior led to conflicts everywhere, and he was imprisoned and demoted many times, but he became even more famous because of it. In literature, he was a disciple of Li Dongyang and was influenced by him, and he made his views more clear by adopting the slogan of restorationism. As a leader of the Seven Former Masters, he involved the literary world in a movement that made the Qin and Han literature and the Tang poetry the highest standards, and this trend dominated all literature for the next 100 years. However, in the end, he fell into a superficial imitation of the ancients, and his grandiose rhetoric is often criticized as being abstract and empty-sounding. He is the author of the Kongtong Collection. The story is recorded in the Ming History, Chapter 2, Wenyuan.

[Masakazu Fukumoto]

"Selections of Chinese Poets, Volume 2, by Kojiro Yoshikawa (1963, Iwanami Shoten)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、明(みん)中期の詩人。字(あざな)は献吉(けんきつ)。号は空同。慶陽（陝西(せんせい)省）の人。1493年（弘治6）の進士。官僚としては、その直情径行のゆえに、至る所で衝突し、何度も投獄、左遷されたが、そのためますます有名になった。文学では、李東陽の門人としてその影響を受け、彼の主張をより鮮明にした復古主義を呼号とした。前七子(ぜんしちし)の指導者として、詩文壇を秦(しん)漢の文、盛唐の詩を最高の規範とする運動に巻き込み、以後100年の文学はすべて、この潮流に支配されてしまう。しかしあげくのはては、表面的な古人の模倣に陥り、雄渾(ゆうこん)壮大な措辞もしばしば観念的で、空疎な響きをもつと評される。著に『空同集』がある。伝は『明史』文苑(ぶんえん)伝二に記される。

［福本雅一］

『吉川幸次郎著『中国詩人選二集2』（1963・岩波書店）』

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