Cultural Celebrity--Ouyang Xiu

Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) was the politician, litterateur, historian and poet of North Song Dynasty with the courtesy name: Yongshu. He was born in Jiangxi province. In his childhood, he was brought up by his mother, a widow when he was only four years old. His mother and he led a poor life, but his mother still taught him by way of writing Chinese characters on the ground in a reed stick.

He was the leader of literature and culture community of North Song Dynasty. He was an incomparably authoritative literator in North Song Dynasty. He carried out the literature-style reform and supported the political reform done by Fan Zhongyan. He also had many students, who were mostly are the giant people in Chinese Histroy, such as Su Dongpo, Su Xu, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi, Zenggong. In the field of literary creation, his works such as essay, poem, ci and other styles were all the perfect ones at that time. Hence he naturally became one of Eight Great Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties. He also edited many books, the famous ancient historical book was Xintangshu(新唐书，New Tang-Dynasty History ). He had his own articles collection named Ouyang Wenzhonggong Wenji.

Ouyang Xiu was such a spiritual and literary symbol of ancient China. He was esteemed to be a most-respectful character in literature history. He had his own writing style. He opposed the old-fashioned writing style. But he largely support the Ancient Literature Movement operated by Han Yu of Tang Dynasty. He supported to use the simple and easy characters instead of the obscure characters.