Writers › Writer / Poet
Yu Ji
Yuan scholar-official descended from the Song minister Yu Yunwen who served as academician of the Kuizhang Pavilion and directed the compilation of the Jingshi dadian
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 Bosheng · Hao Daoyuan
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Yu Ji, courtesy name Bosheng, styled Daoyuan, was a fifth-generation descendant of the Southern Song chief minister Yu Yunwen; his family came from Renshou in Sichuan and settled at Chongren in Linchuan after the fall of the Song. His mother taught him the classics by heart, and he later studied with Wu Cheng. Arriving at the capital early in the Dade reign, he taught at the Dadu prefectural school and the Directorate of Education, was a compiler and Hanlin academician-in-waiting under Renzong, and under the Taiding emperor became director of studies and Hanlin academician, accompanying the court to Shangdu to lecture. Emperor Wenzong made him an academician of the Kuizhang Pavilion and put him, with Zhao Shiyan, in charge of the institutional compendium Jingshi dadian, which he finished alone in eight hundred fascicles. Troubled by failing eyesight, he retired to Linchuan and died there in 1348 at seventy-six, with the posthumous name Wenjing; his collected writings are the Daoyuan xuegu lu.
Life and times
Dates 1272 CE–1348 CE