Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhou Xingsi
Liang-dynasty writer who, at Emperor Wu's command, arranged a thousand characters from Wang Xizhi's calligraphy into the Thousand Character Classic.
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 Zi Sizuan
Zhou Xingsi, courtesy name Sizuan, from Xiang in Chen commandery, served the Liang dynasty as a cavalier attendant and supervising secretary and was known for his prose. Emperor Wu ordered him to arrange one thousand non-repeating characters taken from Wang Xizhi's calligraphy into rhymed verse, producing the Thousand Character Classic, reputedly in a single night. It became one of the most widely used primers for over a thousand years; he died in 521.
Life and times
- UnknownBorn
Northern and Southern - 521 CEDied
Works
Literature · Sayings7- Thousand Character ClassicNorthern and SouthernZhou Xingsi's rhymed primer of a thousand unrepeated characters, also a calligraphy model
- Heaven Dark and Earth YellowNorthern and SouthernAphorism from the Thousand Character Classic: its opening picture of heaven and earth
- The Universe Vast and PrimevalNorthern and SouthernAphorism from the Thousand Character Classic: the vast, chaotic universe at its dawn
- Knowing a Fault, Be Sure to Mend ItNorthern and SouthernIdiom from the Thousand Character Classic: once you see a fault, correct it
- Ceaseless as a Flowing RiverNorthern and SouthernIdiom from the Thousand Character Classic: people and traffic flowing on like a river
+2 more
- One Breath, Joined BranchesNorthern and SouthernIdiom from the Thousand Character Classic: siblings joined like branches of one tree
- Isolated, Narrow and Ill-InformedNorthern and SouthernIdiom from the Book of Rites, Record of Learning, reused in the Thousand Character Classic