Writers › Writer / Poet
Xin Yannian
Eastern Han poet of whom nothing is recorded, whose only surviving poem, the yuefu Yulin Lang, shows a Hu tavern girl rebuffing a powerful family's servant; it is preserved in the Jade Terrace anthology.
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 Author of Yulin Lang
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Xin Yannian was an Eastern Han poet whose life cannot be traced. Only one poem survives, the yuefu Yulin Lang, first found in Xu Ling's Jade Terrace anthology of the Southern Dynasties and placed among the Miscellaneous Song Texts by Guo Maoqian in the Yuefu Shiji of the Song. It shows a Hu tavern girl refusing the advances of Feng Zidu, a servant of the Han minister Huo Guang's household, and praises her for fearing neither force nor wealth. Critics read it as a satire on the overbearing Dou family of imperial in-laws.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; an Eastern Han poet (25–220 CE)