 Ruan Ji left behind a large number of poems and several essays. An early work is entitled “Disquisition on Music” (Yue lun), in which he discusses along Confucian lines the function of music in bringing about harmony. Like most Neo-Daoist intellectuals, Ruan believed that the teaching of Confucius had been distorted by later scholars who under the banner of Confucianism sought merely to further their own gain. Confucius was only concerned with the Dao. The writings of Confucius and other sages sought to bring to light but one Daoist truth. Ruan Ji devoted an essay each to the Yijing, the Laozi, and the Zhuangzi. While the essay on the Yijing dates probably to his youth, and that on the Laozi survives only in fragments, the Da Zhuang lun (Critical Discussion on the Full Meaning of the Zhuangzi) reflects Ruan’s mature thinking. Equally important is his famous poetic essay, the “Biography of Master Great Man” (Daren xiansheng zhuan), in which he takes aim at the corrupt ways of the world and invokes an image of Daoist transcendence, a biting contrast that is rendered all the more powerful in the light of his own predicament.