The Great Poet Tao Yuanming's Health Maintenance Habit and His Literature Creation in Ancient China

Abstract

Tao Yuanming (A.D.365-427), a great poet of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (A.D.4-5) in ancient China, was well known in the world. In this paper, I have researched Tao Yuanmings drug addiction, health maintenance and his literature creation. In fluenced by the custom of the time and his family, he fell over himself for health maintenance period. He was crazed in pursuit for eternal life, and drank chrysanthemum wine and took wonder drugs, which were not a common medicine but a poison called Wushi Powder. When he was only fifteen, Tao Yuanming started paying attention to the ways of maintaining his health and appearance. The artists of later ages draw their ideal portraits of Tao Yuanming, such as the famous painting Picture of Homeward Ho by Li Gonglin, a famous painter in Ming Dynasty, which was kept in the Taipei Palace Museum.