Writers › Writer / Poet
Kang Hai
Top palace graduate of 1502 from Wugong who visited the eunuch Liu Jin to save Li Mengyang, lost office as a supposed partisan, and turned to songs and drama
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 Dehan · Hao Duishan
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Kang Hai, courtesy name Dehan, styled Duishan, came from Wugong in Shaanxi and placed first in the palace examination of 1502, entering the Hanlin Academy as a compiler. He traded poems with Li Mengyang and others who called for a return to ancient models, and is counted among the Former Seven Masters. Early in the Zhengde reign the eunuch Liu Jin, a man from his own region, tried to win him over, but Kang would not call on him; only when Li Mengyang, in prison, sent him a note begging for help, did he visit Liu, who was so pleased that Li was freed the next day. When Liu fell in 1510 that visit was held against Kang, and he was dismissed as one of the eunuch's partisans. He spent the rest of his life at home writing songs and drinking with Wang Jiusi, playing the pipa himself, and wrote the play The Wolf of Zhongshan and the songs of Pandong yuefu.
Life and times
Dates 1475 CE–1541 CE