[1] Described as "comparable in stature to Dante, Shakespeare or Goethe" for his influence on the Chinese literary tradition,[2] Han Yu stood for strong central authority in politics and orthodoxy in cultural matters.

[3] Ming dynasty scholar Mao Kun (茅坤) ranked him first among the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song".

[4] Han Yu was born in 768,[5] in Heyang (河陽, present day Mengzhou) in Henan to a family of noble lineage.

However, he was soon exiled for several possible reasons: for failing to support the heir apparent's faction, his criticism of the misbehavior of the emperor's servants, or his request for reduction of taxes during a famine.

[9] He was then appointed to a high-ranking position after he successfully completed a mission to persuade a rebellious military commander to return to the fold.

At the age of fifty-six, Han Yu died in Chang'an on December 25, 824 and was buried on April 21, 825 in the ancestral cemetery at Heyang.

[13][14] Again from Han Yu's letter, "Memorial on Bone-relics of the Buddha": "Your servant begs leave to say that Buddhism is no more than a cult of the barbarian peoples which spread to China.

If the Buddha were still alive today and came to our court, Your Majesty might condescend to receive him, but he would then be escorted to the borders of the nation, dismissed, and not allowed to delude the masses.

How then, when he has long been dead, could the Buddha’s rotten bones, the foul and unlucky remains of his body, be rightly admitted to the palace?

Confucius said: “Respect ghosts and spirits, but keep them at a distance!” Your servant is deeply ashamed and begs that this bone from the Buddha be given to the proper authorities to be cast into fire and water, that this evil be rooted out, and later generations spared this delusion."

[15] He considered Confucianism to be distinct from these two beliefs in linking the private, moral life of the individual with the public welfare of the state.

He emphasized Mencius's method of assuring public morality and social order,[15] and his concept of the expression of Confucian spirituality through political action would later form the intellectual basis for neo-Confucianism.

[20] He considered the classical "old style prose" (古文, guwen) to be the kind of writing more suited to argumentation and the expression of ideas.

According to A History of Chinese Literature by Herbert Giles, Han Yu "wrote a large quantity of verse, frequently playful, on an immense variety of subjects, and under his touch the commonplace was often transmuted into wit.

According to Li Ao, Han Yu was a great conversationalist and an inspired teacher: "His teaching and his efforts to mold his students were unrelenting, fearing they would not be perfect.

His writings would have a significant influence on Neo-Confucians of later eras, such as the Song dynasty scholars Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi.

[28] Most modern scholarship, although content to assign to Han Yu a secure place in the history of Chinese literature, has been embarrassed by the violence of his Confucian passions.