Writers › Writer / Poet
Jie Xisi
Yuan writer from Fuzhou in Jiangxi who served three terms in the Hanlin Academy and died at work in the history office as a chief editor of the Liao, Jin and Song histories
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 Manshuo · Shi Wen'an
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Jie Xisi, courtesy name Manshuo, came from Fuzhou in Longxing, present-day Fengcheng in Jiangxi, and was a poor student until Cheng Jufu and Li Meng recommended him early in the Yanyou reign, when he was made a compiler in the Hanlin Academy, where he would serve three times. When Emperor Wenzong opened the Kuizhang Pavilion he made Jie its first lecturer on the classics, teaching the sons of nobles and ministers; the emperor liked to call him by his courtesy name. He worked on the Jingshi dadian, whose section on law the emperor likened to the Tang code, and later served as Hanlin academician-in-waiting and expositor. Allowed to retire at seventy in 1343, he was overtaken on the road and called back as a chief editor of the Liao, Jin and Song histories. After the Liao History was finished the next year he stayed in the office day and night to push on, caught a chill and died within a week; he was given the posthumous name Wen'an.
Life and times
Dates 1274 CE–1344 CE