Biography
Tao Yuanming came from a family of officials. His great-grandfather Tao Kan was a prominent Eastern Jin statesman. Born into humble circumstances, Tao Kan entered official service through a friend's recommendation, distinguished himself through administrative and military ability, and ultimately became one of the Eastern Jin's most powerful political and military figures after rendering distinguished service in suppressing Su Jun's rebellion. Tao Yuanming's grandfather Tao Mao served as Administrator of Wuchang. His maternal grandfather Meng Jia belonged to a southern elite family, served under Huan Wen, and rose to Chief Clerk to the General Who Conquers the West. In Tao Yuanming's time, the Tao family still retained a certain political standing at court and was regarded by contemporaries as a prominent local clan of the south. Some of Tao Yuanming's relatives held office and could help him seek appointments. His uncle Tao Dan was a recluse.
Tao Yuanming's father died when he was eight, and the family's circumstances gradually declined. His stepmother died when he was twelve. Tao later recalled in “Sacrificial Text for My Younger Sister of the Cheng Family”: “Our loving mother died early, when we were still young children. I was twelve years old, and you only nine.” By the age of twenty, his household was especially poor, as reflected in his line “In youth I encountered poverty at home” from “Written on an Occasion.”
From childhood, Tao Yuanming studied the Confucian classics. He loved quietude, thought about good conduct, held independent ideals, loved hills and countryside, possessed strong ambitions, and refused to conform to common ways. The preface to “The Tree in Bloom” states, “I heard the Way in childhood,” while “Drinking Wine, No. 16” says, “In youth I rarely concerned myself with worldly affairs; my delight was in the Six Classics.” He thus received a Confucian education in his early years and once held the ambition expressed in his “Miscellaneous Poems”: “My fierce aspirations ranged across the four seas; I wished to spread my wings and soar afar.” At a time when Lao-Zhuang thought was widespread, he was also influenced by Daoist ideas and developed an early love of nature: “From youth I had no taste for worldly conventions; by nature I loved the hills and mountains,” as he wrote in the first of his “Returning to Live in the Country” poems. His character therefore combined both Daoist and Confucian cultivation.
At about twenty, Tao Yuanming began a career of travel and official service in order to make a living. In the tenth of his “Drinking Wine” poems, he recalled this period: “Long ago I once traveled far, reaching even the eastern sea. The road was distant and long, and wind and waves blocked the way. What drove me on this journey? It seemed that hunger compelled me. I bent myself merely to secure a full meal; once I had a little surplus, I feared this was no worthy plan and stopped my carriage to return to a life of leisure.” The details of the low-ranking posts he held from economic necessity during this phase cannot now be established.
In 393, at age twenty-nine, he was appointed Libationer of Jiangzhou. He soon found official service intolerable, resigned, and returned home. The prefecture later summoned him to serve as an administrative clerk, but he declined and remained at home.
In 398, Tao Yuanming joined Huan Xuan's staff. Early in 400 he was sent on a mission to the capital. In the fifth month, while returning home, he was delayed by strong winds at Guilin and wrote “Returning from the Capital in the Fifth Month of the Gengzi Year, Delayed by Wind at Guilin,” expressing his longing to return home and his attachment to his old garden residence. A year later, after his mother's death, he returned to Xunyang to observe mourning. When the three-year mourning period ended, Tao returned to office with the idea that “to reach forty without being known is not something to fear,” taking a staff position under Liu Yu, General Who Pacifies the Army. His feelings were conflicted: he wished to seek accomplishment through office but continued to long for rural life even after entering service, writing, “My eyes tire of unfamiliar roads and rivers; my heart longs for dwelling among hills and marshes” in “Written on First Serving as a Staff Officer under the General Who Pacifies the Army, Passing Qua'e.”
In the third month of 405, Tao Yuanming served as a staff officer under Liu Jingxuan, General Who Establishes Might, and passed Qianxi on a mission to the capital. In “In the Third Month of the Yisi Year, Serving as a Staff Officer under the General Who Establishes Might and Traveling to the Capital via Qianxi,” he wrote that “morning and evening I see the hills and streams; everything remains as before,” that “I turn toward those enduring things; the old moral atmosphere has not yet been cut off,” and that “fields and gardens fill my daily dreams; how could I bear to be separated from them for long?” After more than a decade oscillating between office and farming, he had grown weary of and disillusioned with bureaucratic life.
In the eighth month of 405, Tao Yuanming entered office for the last time, as Magistrate of Pengze County. In the eleventh month, his younger sister of the Cheng family died in Wuchang. Tao wrote “Rhapsody on Returning Home,” surrendered his official seal, and resigned, formally beginning the rural retirement that lasted for the rest of his life. His political position had by then become clear and his thought had matured. Unlike his earlier periods of farming, this withdrawal was now deliberate: he consciously chose the life and understood why he was choosing it. His earlier rural life appears to have resembled that of a small or middling landholder; after his final resignation, he undertook more physical labor himself and lived in a manner closer to ordinary farmers. During this period he wrote many poems and prose works describing rural life, including the five “Returning to Live in the Country” poems and the twelve “Drinking Wine” poems.
In the sixth month of 408, a fire destroyed Tao Yuanming's home and forced him to move. In 415, the court summoned him to serve as Assistant in the Department of Compilation, but he declined on grounds of illness. In 418, Wang Hong became Inspector of Jiangzhou and probably around that year or within the following year or two formed a friendship with Tao. Anecdotes about their association include measuring the size of Tao's straw sandals and having wine delivered to him by a man dressed in white.
In 424, Yan Yanzhi became Administrator of Shi'an and befriended Tao Yuanming; an anecdote tells of Yan leaving him money for wine. In 427, Tan Daoji, having heard of Tao's reputation, visited him, presented him with grain and meat, and urged him to accept office. Tao refused the invitation and also declined the food. He died in Xunyang that same year. After his death, his friends privately bestowed the posthumous name Jingjie, and later generations called him Tao Jingjie.