Writers › Writer / Poet
Wang Shizhen
Ming man of letters from Taicang who led the Later Seven Masters after Li Panlong's death and wrote the critical notes Yiyuan zhiyan and the historical miscellany Yanshantang bieji
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 Yuanmei · Hao Fengzhou
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Wang Shizhen, courtesy name Yuanmei, styled Fengzhou, came from Taicang and was the son of the censor-in-chief Wang Yu. After passing the metropolitan examination in 1547 he joined the Ministry of Justice and, with Li Panlong and others, formed the Later Seven Masters, who held that prose should follow the Western Han and poetry the High Tang. Helping the jailed Yang Jisheng earned him Yan Song's enmity, and when his father was blamed for a frontier loss Yan had him condemned; Wang Yu was beheaded in 1560, and his sons cleared his name only in 1567. Under Wanli he governed Yunyang and was named minister of justice in Nanjing before retiring, and he died at home in 1590. After Li Panlong's death he led the literary world for twenty years; his writings include the critical notes Yiyuan zhiyan and the historical miscellany Yanshantang bieji. Gui Youguang called him a pretentious mediocrity, yet Wang later wrote a eulogy placing Gui in the line of Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu.
Life and times
Dates 1526 CE–1590 CE