Writers › Writer / Poet
Yang Xiong
Han rhapsodist and philosopher from Chengdu who wrote court rhapsodies for Emperor Cheng, then turned to the Taixuan and Fayan, modelled on the Changes and the Analects
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 Ziyun · Yang Zi Yun
Yang Xiong, courtesy name Ziyun, came from Chengdu in Shu. A stammerer devoted to study, he modelled his early rhapsodies on those of his townsman Sima Xiangru. In his forties he went to the capital, was recommended for his writing, and under Emperor Cheng presented rhapsodies on the Ganquan palace, the Hedong sacrifice, the imperial hunt and the Changyang palace, earning a post as gentleman in attendance. Passed over for promotion through three reigns, he turned to philosophy, writing the Classic of Great Mystery (Taixuan jing) after the Book of Changes and the Model Sayings (Fayan) after the Analects; the dialect glossary Fangyan is also attributed to him. Under Wang Mang he became a grandee for his age, and, implicated in a case over forged omens while collating books in the Tianlu Pavilion, he leapt from the building and nearly died. He died in AD 18 at seventy-one. In 1084 the Song placed his tablet in the Confucian temple; the early Ming removed it because he had served Wang Mang.
Life and times
Dates 53 BCE–18 CE