Writers › Writer / Poet
Che Wanyu
Early Qing official and scholar whose Primer on Tones and Rhymes became a classic textbook for training parallel couplets.
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 Shuangting · Hetian
Che Wanyu, courtesy name Shuangting, from Shaoyang in Hunan, passed the jinshi examination in 1664 and rose to Supervising Secretary of the Office of Scrutiny for War, known for outspoken memorials. A skilled calligrapher, he returned home in later life to teach and write. His Primer on Tones and Rhymes, arranged by rhyme group with couplets such as 'cloud matches rain, snow matches wind', became a widely used children's textbook.
Life and times
Dates 1632 CE–1705 CE