Li He

Li He (c. 790–791 – 816 or 817) was a Chinese poet of the mid-Tang dynasty, known by his courtesy name Changji and the epithets Guicai ("devilish talent") and Shigui ("poet ghost"). He came from a family of distant royal descent, tracing its lineage to the ruling Li family of the Tang, but his branch had declined in status by his time. Born in Fuchang County (modern-day Yiyang County, Henan), he began composing poetry at age seven and by fifteen was compared to the noted yuefu master Li Yi. Despite his early promise, Li He was barred from taking the imperial examination at age twenty due to a naming taboo: his father’s given name, Jinsu, contained a character homophonous with the first character of jinshi, the degree he would have earned.

Political career

Some scholars suggest this was a pretext used by jealous rivals to block his career. The poet Han Yu, an admirer, wrote an essay encouraging him to sit the exam, but Li ultimately failed. He served only three years in the low-ranking post of Fenglilang before returning to his hometown. Li He died young, at twenty-six or twenty-seven, as a poor and low-ranking official.

Sickness and death

He was described as sickly, very thin, with a unibrow and long fingernails. According to a contemporary biography, at his death a figure in scarlet appeared, announcing that the Supreme Emperor had summoned him to heaven to write poetry. About 240 of his poems survive, though the New Book of Tang notes that many were lost due to their strangeness and his early death. An anecdote claims a cousin tasked with compiling his works threw them into a privy out of personal dislike.

Poetry

Li He was a diligent poet: he would journey during the day, jotting down lines that came to him in a brocade bag, and complete the poems at home in the evening. His poetry is unique for its fantastic, ghostly, and supernatural imagery, frequently employing inauspicious words like "aging" and "death." Virtually none of his poems use regulated verse. He wrote evocatively of gods and Buddhas in works such as "Tianshang yao" and "Meng tian," and gave eerie descriptions of the ghost world in "Qiu lai" and "Shen xian qu," the latter’s spiritual symbolism described as nearly impenetrable. His style was widely imitated in China until the Qing dynasty, when a shift in literary tastes caused his popularity to wane; he was notably excluded from the influential Three Hundred Tang Poems.