A Reading of the Aesthetic Art in Han Yu's Poems

Han Yu, the most typical representative of the Han-Meng poetic school, devotes himself to the varieties of artistic style throughout his life as the other outstanding poets have done in the mid Tang Dynasty. However. Han's aesthetic art lies in his poetic innovation, his choice of unfamiliar words and pursuit of strangeness and surprise. His aesthetic trend can find explanation in the following facts: he is not only influenced by the fashion in his time that highly values strangeness and surprise, but he is also subject to his own personality and preference for strangeness and surprise. Besides, the ups and downs of his official career help to contribute to his poetic aesthetics.