Writers › Writer / Poet
Liu Zhongyong
Mid-Tang poet named Dan, known by his courtesy name Zhongyong, a jinshi of the Dali years who declined a post at Hongzhou; best known for Lament of the Frontier Soldier.
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 Liu Dan · Liu Dan (variant character)
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Liu Zhongyong, whose given name was Dan (written with a variant character to avoid the taboo name of Emperor Wuzong), was known by his courtesy name Zhongyong. A mid-Tang poet, he passed the jinshi in the Dali years and was offered, but never took up, the post of records clerk of Hongzhou. The Complete Tang Poems preserves thirteen of his poems, of which Lament of the Frontier Soldier, on the weariness and homesickness of garrison troops, is the best known and appears in the Three Hundred Tang Poems.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the Dali years (766–779)