Writers › Writer / Poet
Xie Lingyun
Liu Song aristocrat and poet, grandson of Xie Xuan, whose landscape verse grew out of his roaming as governor of Yongjia and on his estate at Shining
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.
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Xie Lingyun came from Yangxia in Chen commandery (modern Taikang, Henan); a grandson of the Eastern Jin general Xie Xuan, he inherited the title Duke of Kangle. When the Liu Song replaced the Jin his rank was reduced, and in 422 he was sent out as governor of Yongjia, where he spent his time roaming the hills before resigning after a year to rebuild the family estate at Shining in Kuaiji. Under the Yuanjia reign he served as palace librarian and administrator of Linchuan, but complaints that he neglected duty for excursions, and then a charge of resisting arrest by force, led to his banishment to Guangzhou. His poems, such as Climbing the Tower by the Pond, describe the scenery of Yongjia and Shining, and his Rhapsody on Dwelling in the Mountains portrays his estate. He was executed for sedition at Guangzhou in 433, aged forty-nine. Zhong Rong's Grades of Poets (Shipin) puts him in the top class.
Life and times
Dates 385 CE–433 CE