Writers › Writer / Poet
Ling Xuan
Traditionally a man of Lushui under Emperor Cheng of Western Han and the attributed author of the Zhao Feiyan waizhuan; he is known only from the self-preface attached to that work, which the Siku editors suspected was a later forgery.
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 Ziyu
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Ling Xuan, courtesy name Ziyu, is traditionally a man of Lushui in Western Han and the attributed author of the Zhao Feiyan waizhuan (Unofficial Biography of Zhao Feiyan). According to the self-preface appended to the work, he was widely learned, served as Commandant of Hedong, and lived at the same time as Zhao Feiyan and her sister; his concubine Fan Tongde, a niece of Feiyan's maid Fan Yi, told him the sisters' story, from which he wrote the biography. He does not appear in the Hanshu or other histories, and his life is known only from that preface; the Siku quanshu editors judged details of the book inconsistent with Han institutions and suspected it was written later under his name. This record registers the traditional attribution; the authorship is doubtful.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; traditionally of the reign of Emperor Cheng of Western Han (32–7 BCE)