Writers › Writer / Poet
Liu Lingxian
Southern Liang woman poet of the Liu clan of Pengcheng and wife of Xu Fei, known for her moving funeral text for him.
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 Third Daughter Liu · Wife of Xu Fei
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Liu Lingxian came from Pengcheng, the daughter of Liu Hui and sister of the writer Liu Xiaochuo, and married Xu Fei, son of the official Xu Mian; she was known as Liu the Third. When Xu Fei died in 524 she wrote a funeral text so sorrowful that Xu Mian is said to have laid down his brush on reading it. Eight poems survive, mostly on a woman's loneliness; two replies to her husband are in the Yutai Xinyong. Her six-volume collection is lost.
Life and times
- UnknownBorn
Northern and Southernactive c. 524, when she wrote the elegy for her husband - UnknownDied
Works
Literature · Poetry2- In Reply to My Husband: Two PoemsNorthern and SouthernLiu Lingxian answers her husband Xu Fei: spring-chamber grief, and modesty at his praise
- Listening to the BlackbirdNorthern and SouthernLiu Lingxian at her mirror, so taken with a mimicking blackbird she forgets her makeup
Family tree
- Direct kinFather
Liu LingxianHusband - Other kin1