Writers › Writer / Poet
Gong Zizhen
Foremost Enlightenment Thinker, Reformer, and Master Poet of the Late Qing
Mural guide
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 Gong Seren · Gong Ding'an · Ding'an · Master Ding'an
Visionary Qing Dynasty philosopher, classical scholar, and poet. His Jihai Zashi poems boldly warned of dynastic ossification and sounded the dawn of modern Chinese reform.
Life and times
- 1792Born
Qing - 1841Died
Works
Literature · Poetry2- Miscellaneous Poems of the Jihai Year: No. 5QingGong Zizhen's quatrain on leaving office for the south: fallen petals still nourish the flowers
- Miscellaneous Poems of the Jihai Year: No. 125QingGong Zizhen's quatrain written for a Daoist prayer, calling on heaven to send new talent
- Literature · Sayings2
- Not Bound by a Single PatternQingIdiom from Gong Zizhen's Miscellaneous Poems of 1839: not bound to any one pattern
- Becoming Spring Earth to Nourish the FlowersQingFamous line from Gong Zizhen's Miscellaneous Poems of 1839: fallen petals feed the flowers
- Literature · Prose1
- Record of the Sick Plum PavilionQingGong Zizhen's essay on plum trees crippled for beauty, an allegory of stifled talent