Few figures in Chinese history have embodied the richness and complexity of Chinese culture as fully as Su Shi (1037–1101), better known as Su Dongpo. Poet, essayist, calligrapher, painter, statesman, and philosopher of life, Su achieved distinction in an extraordinary range of fields. To understand Su Dongpo, however, is to explore something larger than the accomplishments of a single literary genius. His life and writings offer a window into some of the deepest currents of Chinese thought and culture.

The Renwen Society at China Institute is pleased to present an online lecture, “Su Dongpo: An Enduring Light of Chinese Civilization,” by renowned scholar and lecturer of Chinese classical literature Ben Wang, on Saturday, September 26, 2026. Focusing on three representative works from Su Dongpo’s later years, Crossing the Sea (《渡海》), Watching the Tidal Bore (《观潮》), and Xing Xiang Zi (《行香子》), the lecture will explore Su’s thought, emotions, and philosophy of life through a close reading of his poetry.

At the heart of Su Dongpo’s life and thought was an extraordinary sense of balance, a quality deeply rooted in the Chinese philosophical idea of the “middle.” Confucian ideals shaped his commitment to moral principle, public service, and good government, while Daoist thought helped him cultivate detachment and transcendence in the face of suffering. In his writings, seriousness and humor, heroic spirit and tenderness, sorrow and joy, engagement with the world and freedom from it could exist side by side.

This balance did not mean compromise when fundamental principles were at stake. Su’s refusal to yield to what he regarded as injustice contributed to a political career marked by imprisonment, repeated demotions, and exile to increasingly remote parts of the empire. Yet adversity did not diminish his attachment to life. As Ben Wang has observed, it was precisely Su’s resilience, perseverance, and philosophical outlook that enriched his literary achievement. Even during his darkest years, his writings reveal an abiding love for life and an extraordinary capacity to discover beauty, humor, and meaning in the world around him.

Su Dongpo’s literary achievement was equally remarkable. More than 2,000 of his shi poems have survived, while his approximately 350 ci poems helped transform the status and expressive possibilities of the genre. His writing could possess the celebrated quality of haofang (豪放), or “heroic abandon,” yet it could also convey intimacy, compassion, humor, and joie de vivre. Through this unusual breadth of temperament and expression, Su created a body of work in which seemingly contradictory dimensions of human experience are brought into harmony.

China Institute once devoted four semesters and some eighty hours of instruction to Su Dongpo, and even that could offer only a glimpse of the full range of his poetry, prose, calligraphy, and painting. For this Renwen Society lecture, after careful consideration, Ben Wang has chosen three works that he believes capture essential dimensions of Su’s thought and sensibility: Crossing the Sea, Watching the Tidal Bore, and Xing Xiang Zi.

Through a close reading of these three works, Ben Wang will examine how Confucian and Daoist traditions came together in Su Dongpo’s understanding of life, literature, and public responsibility; how he maintained his moral convictions amid political persecution and personal hardship; and how he ultimately found a distinctive equilibrium among life and death, sorrow and joy, suffering and transcendence. The lecture will also consider why Su Dongpo, nearly a thousand years after his death, continues to speak so powerfully to generations of readers and remains an enduring light of Chinese civilization.