Writers › Writer / Poet
Xie Tiao
Southern Qi poet of the Xie clan, governor of Xuancheng and one of the Eight Friends of Jingling, whose clear landscape verse Li Bai admired
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 Xuanhui · Xiao Xie
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Xie Tiao, courtesy name Xuanhui, came from Yangxia in Chen commandery (modern Taikang, Henan), and he and his kinsman Xie Lingyun are known as the Younger and Elder Xie. As a young man he joined the salon of Xiao Ziliang, Prince of Jingling, where with Shen Yue, Wang Rong, Xiao Yan and others he was counted among the Eight Friends of Jingling and took part in the tonally regulated Yongming style. After serving the Prince of Sui as literary adviser, he became governor of Xuancheng in 495 and later vice director of the Ministry of Personnel. In 499, when Xiao Yaoguang, Prince of Shi'an, plotted to depose the emperor, Xie Tiao refused to join him, was falsely accused, and died in prison aged thirty-six. His best-known poems include Climbing Three Hills at Dusk and Looking Back at the Capital. Writing at Xuancheng, Li Bai praised the clarity of the younger Xie and said a line likening the river to white silk kept Xie Xuanhui always in his mind.
Life and times
Dates 464 CE–499 CE