Writers › Writer / Poet
Yuan Zhen
Mid-Tang poet and chief minister who traded verses with Bai Juyi as the pair Yuan-Bai and wrote the tale of Yingying, source of The Story of the Western Wing
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 Weizhi · Yuan Xiang
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Yuan Zhen, courtesy name Weizhi, came from Henan (Luoyang) and descended from the Tuoba royal house of the Northern Wei; his father died when he was eight and his mother taught him to read. He passed the placement examination with Bai Juyi in 803, and in 806 he placed first in the decree examination and was made a reminder. Returning to the capital in 810, he was humiliated by a eunuch in a quarrel over lodgings at the Fushui post station, yet it was he who was demoted to Jiangling, and later to Tongzhou. In 822 he became chief minister but lost the post after about three months; he then served as governor of Tongzhou in Guanzhong, surveillance commissioner of eastern Zhejiang and military governor at Wuchang, where he died in 831. His long exchange of poems with Bai Juyi gave rise to the term Yuanhe style. His prose tale of Yingying passed through Master Dong's medley into Wang Shifu's Yuan drama The Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang ji).
Life and times
- 779 CEBorn
Tang - 785Poetry Paper at Huanhua Stream
Took partage 6Xue Tao won renown in Chengdu for her poetry under the Jiannan governor Wei Gao and, living by Huanhua Stream, had the small poem sheets made that are known as Xue Tao paper.- Xue Tao Paper and Poetic Exchanges805age 26Xue Tao had small poem sheets made, known as Xue Tao Paper; Yuan Zhen exchanged poems with her, and Bai Juyi and others also wrote verse connected with her.
- Xue Tao Paper and Poetic Exchanges
- 831 CEDied
Works
Literature · Poetry2- The Detached PalaceTangYuan Zhen's twenty characters on a deserted palace where aged attendants recall a vanished age
- Venting My Grief, No. 1TangYuan Zhen remembers a wife who shared his poverty, now that he can only pay for her rites
- Literature · Fiction1
- Story of Yingying / Encounter with a FairyTangYuan Zhen's tale of Zhang and Cui Yingying, loved and deserted; source of the West Chamber
- Literature · Sayings1
- Having Once Seen the Vast SeaTangIdiom from Yuan Zhen's Thoughts on Parting: worldly experience, or devotion to an old love
Connections
- Shared events1
- Others1
