Writers › Writer / Poet
Wang Renxu
Tang county official and phonologist who revised and expanded Lu Fayan's Qieyun rhyme dictionary in 706
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 Dewen
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Wang Renxu, courtesy name Dewen, was a Tang official whose home is not recorded; in the Shenlong era he held the rank of court gentleman for consultation and served as sheriff of Xin'an county in Quzhou. In his spare time he had written works on standard character forms, and at the suggestion of Ping Sixian he corrected, supplemented and annotated Lu Fayan's rhyme dictionary Qieyun, finishing the five-juan Corrected and Supplemented Qieyun in 706. The book was never printed and survives in several Tang manuscripts; the only complete one, with a colophon by Song Lian, was kept in the imperial palace from the Song to the Qing and is now in the Palace Museum, Beijing. It is a key source for the sounds of Middle Chinese.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; completed his Corrected and Supplemented Qieyun in 706