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High Tang poet from Luoyang, an official in Xingyang and Luoyang, whose couplet on the sea sun rising from the last of night in Moored Below Beigu Mountain became famous.
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.
Wang Wan, from Luoyang, was a High Tang poet. In the early Kaiyuan years he served as registrar of Xingyang and then as a Luoyang county official, and he took part in the collation of books at the Palace Library. His Moored Below Beigu Mountain describes Jiangnan scenery, and its couplet about the sea sun rising out of the last of night and spring on the river entering the old year is among the most quoted of the High Tang. Ten of his poems survive; his dates cannot be fixed.
TangWang Wan's writing was known early, and he travelled between Wu and Chu producing much. The couplet in Jiangnan Thoughts, about the sea sun rising from the last of the night and river spring entering the old year, had few equals among poets; Lord Zhang wrote it on the wall of the Council Hall and showed it to writers as a model. He also went on an embassy up Mount Zhongnan and wrote a rhapsody on it.
Wang Wan passed the jinshi in the Xiantian years and in the early Kaiyuan years was registrar of Xingyang. When Ma Huaisu asked leave to collate the books, he was chosen to compile one section, later helped proofread books at the Lizheng Academy with Lu Shaobo and others, and ended as commandant of Luoyang.