Letter to Liu Dajie\[!\]
(12 February 1976)

To Professor Liu Dajie of Shanghai Fudan University:

I agree with your opinion on Han Yu,\[2\] that one divides into two is appropriate. Regarding Li Yishan’s\[3\] untitled poems, it is difficult to pass a definitive judgment at present; it is permissible to leave the question open for the time being. I deeply apologize for the long delay in replying. I read with delight the two poems and the ci you sent, and am most grateful.

Mao Zedong
12 February 1976

This letter was written on issue No. 540 of *Excerpts from Letters*, compiled and printed by the Letters and Visits Office of the CPC Central Committee on 7 August 1975. That issue carried Liu Dajie’s letter to Mao Zedong dated 3 August. In the letter, he said that the revision of his history of literature had always received the Chairman’s solicitude, for which he was deeply and sincerely grateful. At present, newspaper and journal articles totally repudiate Han Yu, describing him as utterly devoid of merit. He believed that while Han Yu, who posed as the guardian of the Confucian orthodoxy and advocated the Mandate of Heaven, must of course be severely criticized, a careful reading of his essays reveals that his thought indeed contains contradictions. For instance, his praise of the achievements of Guan Zhong and Shang Yang\[?\] is inconsistent with Confucian thought and inclines toward the Legalist school; his prose technique and grammar conform to standards, and his writing is smooth and fluent, earning the esteem of Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi. To totally negate all this would seem inappropriate. Liu Dajie held that, on the basis of criticizing Han Yu’s dominant Confucian thought, he should be accorded a certain place in literary history. As for Li Yishan’s untitled poems, he considered some to be political poems and a small number to be love poems. Liu Dajie also enclosed with his letter a seven-character regulated verse and a ci poem, which he presented to Mao Zedong.

\[2\] Han Yu, Tang dynasty writer and philosopher.
\[3\] Li Yishan, i.e., Li Shangyin, late Tang poet, author of *Collected Poems of Li Yishan* and other works.