Writers › Writer / Poet
Feng Yan
Writer of the transition between Western and Eastern Han whose talent went unrewarded; in forced retirement he composed the Rhapsody Revealing My Intent.
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 Jingtong · Feng Jingtong
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Feng Yan, courtesy name Jingtong, came from Duling near Chang'an and could recite the Book of Songs at nine. He refused to serve Wang Mang, held a command under the Gengshi regime, and later served Emperor Guangwu as magistrate of Quyang and as an aide to the metropolitan commandant. Accused of ties with the consort clans, and dismissed as a writer whose style outran his substance, he ended his life in retirement. His Rhapsody Revealing My Intent voices the grief of unrecognised talent, and Jiang Yan's Rhapsody on Resentment recalls him as the man 'rebuffed and sent home to his fields'.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active c. 23–57 CE, at the turn of Western and Eastern Han