Writers › Writer / Poet
Chen Tao
Late-Tang poet, courtesy name Songbo, skilled in yuefu verse, who spent his old age on Mount Xi near Hongzhou; his 'Song of Longxi' is in the Tangshi Sanbaishou.
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 Songbo
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Chen Tao, courtesy name Songbo, a Late-Tang poet, is traditionally placed in Nanping, Fujian, though the Quan Tang Shi calls him a man of Lingnan. Born around 812, he was good at yuefu verse, studied in Chang'an in his youth, travelled south through Jiangnan and Lingnan in the early Dahe years, and in old age lived in retirement on Mount Xi at Hongzhou (modern Nanchang), dying around 885. His Wenlu in ten fascicles is lost; a one-fascicle Chen Songbo Shiji was compiled later. His 'Song of Longxi' is the only poem by a Fujian-born poet in the Tangshi Sanbaishou.
Life and times
Dates c. 812–c. 885 CE (some sources give 801 for his birth)