Writers › Writer / Poet
Liang Youyu
Shunde poet who joined Li Panlong's circle as a young official in the Ministry of Justice, was counted among the Later Seven Masters and died in his thirties
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 Gongshi · Hao Lanting
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Liang Youyu, courtesy name Gongshi, came from Shunde in Guangdong. As a young man he wrote poetry with Ou Daren, Li Minbiao and others at the South Garden in Guangzhou, and the group became known as the Later Five Masters of the South Garden. He gained his jinshi in 1550 and joined the Ministry of Justice, where he exchanged poems with Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen and with his fellow graduates Zong Chen, Xu Zhongxing and Wu Guolun, the circle later called the Later Seven Masters. After three years in the capital he asked leave to look after his mother, and at home he shut his gate to read, refusing even visiting high officials. He died in 1554; the Ming History (Mingshi) gives his age as thirty-six. His poems and essays were collected as the Lanting cungao, also called the Bibu ji after his post in the Ministry of Justice.
Life and times
Dates 1519 CE–1554 CE