Meng Haoran (Meng Hao-jan) 698-740

A celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty. He lived most of his life in his native place Xiangyang (in present-day Hubei province) and many of his poems include references to local landscape and history, and detailed descriptions of flora and fauna. Meng did not have a significant career in the civil service: he went to Chang¡¦an to take the jinshi examination when he was thirty-nine, but failed, and the only post he ever held was a minor one not long before his death.

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