Writers › Writer / Poet
Lu Zhaolin
Early Tang poet, one of the Four Talents, best known for the long song Chang'an in the Old Style, who drowned himself in the Ying River after years of illness
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 Shengzhi · Hao Youyouzi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Lu Zhaolin, courtesy name Shengzhi, came from Fanyang in Youzhou and studied philology as a boy under Cao Xian and Wang Yifang. He began as a secretary to Li Yuanyu, Prince of Deng, who prized him as his own Sima Xiangru, and later became sheriff of Xindu in Shu. Struck by a crippling wind illness, he left office, consulted the physician Sun Simiao, and took elixirs on Mount Taibai that made him worse. He moved to Mount Juci near Yangdi, bought a garden and led the Ying River around his house, writing the Shiji wen and Wubei about his suffering. With his feet contracted and one hand useless, he said farewell to his family and drowned himself in the Ying. He excelled at the seven-syllable song, and his Chang'an in the Old Style contains the line about wishing to be mandarin ducks rather than immortals; he is counted with Wang Bo, Yang Jiong and Luo Binwang as the Four Talents of the Early Tang.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; early Tang poet