Writers › Writer / Poet
Cen Can
Tang poet of the frontier who twice served on army staffs in the far northwest, under Gao Xianzhi and Feng Changqing, and later governed Jiazhou in Sichuan
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 Cen Jiazhou
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Cen Can came from the Cen clan of Jiangling, whose ancestral seat was Nanyang; his great-grandfather Cen Wenben and great-uncle Cen Changqian had both been chief ministers. He passed the metropolitan examination in 744 and five years later joined the staff of Gao Xianzhi, protector-general of Anxi, as secretary; in 754 he went to Beiting as an administrator under Feng Changqing. On these two tours beyond the passes he wrote long ballads such as the Song of White Snow, seeing off Assistant Wu and the Ballad of Zouma River, which describe snow, desert winds and armies on the march around the Tianshan. In 757 Du Fu and others recommended him as a remonstrance official, and early in the Dali reign he became prefect of Jiazhou, the source of his name Cen Jiazhou. Dismissed and unable to travel home down the Yangzi, he died in Chengdu, generally dated to 770. Du Que, who compiled his poems, wrote that each new piece was copied out by everyone.
Life and times
Dates c. 715 CE–c. 770 CE