Lu You (Lu Yu) ³°´å 1125-1210

Born into a scholarly family near present-day Shaoxing two years before the Northern Song dynasty (960¡V1127) fell to the Jin, spent his early childhood as a refugee. After obtaining the jinshi degree in 1153, he had a long official career, punctuated by several periods of exile. The most prolific poet of the Southern Song era (1127¡V1279), he is known as the 'patriotic poet' for his strong support for war against the Jin in some of his poems, but actually most of his nearly 10,000 poems are non-political, with pastoral or Taoist themes.

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