Writers › Writer / Poet
Xue Tao
Mid-Tang poet in Chengdu, known as the 'female collator', who exchanged verse with Yuan Zhen and others and is traditionally credited with the red Xue Tao notepaper
Mural of the event “Poetry Paper at Huanhua Stream”, which this person took part in.
From the Zhenyuan era of the Tang, Xue Tao lived in Chengdu and won the notice of Wei Gao, Military Governor of Jiannan, who by tradition invited her to compose verse at his banquets; she became known as the Female Collator. Living by Huanhua Stream, she had small sheets of poem paper made, known as Xue Tao paper, and exchanged poems with Yuan Zhen and other poets.
Also known as Zi Hongdu · Nu Jiaoshu · Xue Jiaoshu · Huanhua Daoren
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Xue Tao, courtesy name Hongdu, was born in Chang'an and as a child followed her father to an official post in Sichuan, staying on in Chengdu after his death. In the Zhenyuan years the military governor Wei Gao invited her to his banquets to compose verse, and she was enrolled as a government entertainer; he is said to have wanted to petition the court to make her a collator of texts, and though nothing came of it, the name 'female collator' stuck. She exchanged poems with Yuan Zhen, Wang Jian and others, and Wang Jian addressed her as the female collator by the Wanli Bridge. In later years she lived by the Huanhua Stream, where, by tradition, she made small deep-red sheets of paper for her poems, later called Xue Tao paper. Duan Wenchang, a former governor of the region, wrote her epitaph. Her Jinjiang Collection in five scrolls is lost, and the Complete Tang Poems (Quan Tangshi) preserves one scroll of her verse.
Life and times
Dates c. 768 CE–c. 832 CE