Writers › Writer / Poet
Xu Zhenqing
Suzhou poet, one of the Four Talents of Wu, who after his 1505 jinshi joined Li Mengyang's circle, wrote the critical essay Tanyi lu and died at thirty-two
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 Changgu · Hao Donghai
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Xu Zhenqing, courtesy names Changgu and Changguo, came from Wu county in Suzhou; his family owned no books, yet he seemed to know everything, and his friend Tang Yin made him known to Shen Zhou. He became a jinshi in 1505, and when the Hongzhi emperor sent to ask about him and Lu Shen, Lu was chosen for the Hanlin Academy while Xu, plain in looks, was passed over and made an assistant in the Court of Judicial Review, later demoted to an erudite of the National University after a prisoner escaped. In the capital he fell in with Li Mengyang and He Jingming and turned to the styles of the Han, Wei and High Tang, though Li mocked him for holding to the old manner without truly changing. He was one of the Four Talents of Wu and is also counted among the Former Seven Masters. He died in 1511 at thirty-two, leaving the critical essay Tanyi lu and the poems of the Digong ji.
Life and times
Dates 1479 CE–1511 CE