Writers › Writer / Poet
Li Qingzhao
Song lyricist styled Yi'an who compiled the Records of Bronze and Stone with her husband Zhao Mingcheng and argued that the song lyric is a genre of its own
Mural of Slow, Slow Song · Searching and Seeking, a work by this person.
A solitary woman sits by the window among chrysanthemums while wild geese pass through fine autumn rain at dusk. Fading light and falling blossoms gather the lyric’s grief and exile.
Also known as Li Yi'an · Yianjushi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Li Qingzhao, styled the Lay Recluse Yi'an, came from Zhangqiu in Qizhou (now part of Jinan, Shandong); her father Li Gefei won Su Shi's notice for his prose. In 1101 she married the student Zhao Mingcheng, and together they collected bronzes, stone inscriptions and paintings and compiled the *Records of Bronze and Stone* (*Jinshi lu*). After the Jingkang disaster they fled south, Zhao died in 1129, and most of the collection was lost in the years of flight. Song writers record that in 1132 she married Zhang Ruzhou and soon sued for separation, an episode later scholars have disputed. In the Shaoxing era she wrote an afterword to the *Records* telling the history of the collection, and in her 'Discourse on the Song Lyric' (*Cilun*) she judged earlier writers and held that the lyric was a genre apart from poetry. She is usually thought to have died around 1155. Her original collection is lost; the surviving *Rinsing Jade Lyrics* (*Shuyu ci*) is a later compilation of about fifty pieces.
Life and times
Dates 1084 CE–c. 1155 CE