Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhang Yan
Late Song and early Yuan lyricist, descendant of the general Zhang Jun, whose Origins of Song Lyrics set out the ideal of airy clarity in the form
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Shuxia · Hao Yutian · Le Xiaoweng
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Zhang Yan, courtesy name Shuxia, sobriquet Yutian, came of a Fengxiang family long settled in Lin'an and was a sixth-generation descendant of Zhang Jun, Prince of Xun. He grew up in privilege, but when Yuan armies took Lin'an his grandfather Zhang Ru was executed and the family estate seized, and he spent the rest of his life wandering south of the Yangzi. In 1290 he went north to Dadu to copy sutras in gold, returning the following year, and afterwards moved between Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Siming, where in old age he kept a fortune-telling stall. A trained musician, he wrote the *Origins of Song Lyrics* (*Ciyuan*), whose first part treats music and whose second treats composition, insisting that a lyric should be airy and clear rather than dense. His poems on spring water and on a lone goose earned him the nicknames Spring-Water Zhang and Lone-Goose Zhang, and about three hundred lyrics survive in his *Shanzhong baiyun ci*.
Life and times
Song
YuanWorks
Literature · Lyrics10- Eight Immortals Gather at the Jade Terrace · Sending My Mood: The Lovely Autumn MoonYuanZhang Yan's long ci of lakes and hills, choosing a garden and wine over a wandering sword
- Water Dragon Chant · White Lotus: Lotus on the Immortal's PalmYuanZhang Yan's long ci on the white lotus, a pale beauty on a misty lake who fears the west wind
- Fragrance of Silk Gauze · Red Leaves: Frost Flying Ten Thousand MilesYuanZhang Yan's long ci on red autumn leaves, in which a weary traveller sees his own drifting life
- Sparse Shadows · Shadows of Plum Blossom: A Sliver of Moon at DuskYuanZhang Yan's long ci on the shadows of plum blossom under the moon, pure and impossible to pick
- Gaoyang Terrace · Orioles Nesting in Linked LeavesYuanZhang Yan's late-spring ci on West Lake, where a fading season turns to grief for vanished days
+5 more
- Clouds Crossing the River · Empty Hills, the Sky Sinking into the SeaYuanZhang Yan's long ci sent from a long stay in Shanyin, longing for his old retreat by West Lake
- Eight Beats of Ganzhou · Remembering Snow at the Jade Gate PassYuanZhang Yan's long ci recalling snow at the frontier and mourning a life scattered like autumn
- Undoing the Linked Rings · The Chu River Empty at DuskYuanZhang Yan's long ci on a lone wild goose cut off from its flock, an image of his own wandering
- Sparse Shadows · Green and Round, Pure of ItselfYuanZhang Yan's long ci on lotus leaves, from summer grace to the night the west wind snaps them
- Flute Beneath the Moon · A Lone Cloud Ten Thousand Miles AwayYuanZhang Yan's long ci of a weary traveller dreaming back to old roads and old friends