Zhang Heng, Eastern Han Polymath, His Life and Works

This dissertation presents a comprehensive review and analysis of the extant works of Zhang Heng, an Eastern Han polymath. Although in modern times he is best known as the inventor of the first seismograph and an ingenious astronomer, his extant fu and shi poetry actually supports strongly his reputation as one of the greatest ancient Chinese poets. His poetic works, fewer than a dozen pieces, show him to be a Confucian scholar with aspiration to serve his empire and society, an intelligent gentleman with an unusual combination of wit, rationalism, and sensitivity, and a poet at the forefront of his time in literary versatility and insight. His works have to be understood in the context of his life, which coincided with the decline of the Han Empire. He never met an enlightened ruler and for the most part of his career held low positions. As a court astrologer, he investigated the heavens and helped to broaden the understanding of the cosmos with knowledge about eclipses, constellations, the armillary sphere, and computations involving the equator and ecliptic of the celestial globe. In a long poem, he introduces his reader to a new form of the ritually proper spirit journey to outer space, traveling from one asterism to the next around the celestial globe. Poetry and astronomy are naturally synthesized into an eclectic experience. He lived in an era when the mainstream court scholars immersed themselves in a peculiar hybrid of Confucian classics and prognostication texts: no major court decisions could be made without consulting the "weft texts." His objection to them did not create any noticeable result. It is these three realms: poetry, the heavens, and weft texts which together defined Zhang Heng. His frustration is understandable and even expected; it is his resiliency in the face of unrealized aspirations that reveals his true strength.