Writers › Writer / Poet

Fan Chengda

Southern Song poet and statesman who stood firm on an embassy to the Jin in 1170, briefly served as assistant chief councillor and wrote sixty poems on the farming year at Stone Lake

Also known as Zi Zhineng · Hao Shi Hu Ju Shi · Shi Hu · Shi Wenmu

Fan Chengda, courtesy name Zhineng, sobriquet Shihu Jushi, came from Wu county in Pingjiang and passed the jinshi examination in 1154. On an embassy to the Jin in 1170 he asked for the return of the Northern Song imperial tombs and, on his own initiative, presented a request to change the protocol for receiving Jin edicts; the Jin court nearly detained him, but he came home with his mission's honour intact. He went on to govern Guilin and Chengdu as commander in Sichuan and in 1178 served two months as assistant chief councillor. Retiring to Stone Lake near Suzhou, he wrote in 1186 his sixty *Seasonal Pleasures of Fields and Gardens* (*Sishi tianyuan zaxing*) on the farming year. He died in 1193 at sixty-eight and was named Wenmu. He is grouped with Lu You, Yang Wanli and You Mao as the four great poets of the Southern Song revival.

Life and times

  1. 1126 CEBornSong
  2. 1193 CEDied

Works

  1. Literature · Lyrics3
    1. Remembering the Lady of Qin · Where the Tower's Shadow BreaksSongFan Chengda's short ci of apricot blossom under the moon and a brief spring dream by lamplight
    2. Frosty Sky, Dawn Horn · Evening Clears and the Wind DropsSongFan Chengda's short ci of sparse blossom in a clear dusk and a feeling with no one to share it
    3. Charming Eyes · Drowsy Sunbeams and Floating Purple HazeSongFan Chengda's short ci of a sudden clear day on the road and a drowsy rest by a willow pond
  2. Literature · Poetry2
    1. Words for the Kitchen God OfferingSongFan Chengda's village ballad on the Suzhou rite of sending the Kitchen God up to Heaven
    2. Farm FamilySongFan Chengda's quatrain of a farm household at work, down to the children planting melons