Writers › Writer / Poet
Wen Zisheng
Writer of Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from Yuanju in Jiyin, esteemed for his prose and poetry, an Attendant-in-Ordinary who starved to death in the Jinyang prison in 547.
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 Courtesy name Pengju · Wen the Reader-in-Waiting
Wen Zisheng, courtesy name Pengju, came from Yuanju in Jiyin (modern Heze, Shandong) and was a writer of the Northern Dynasties. He began among the retainers of Yuan Yuan, Prince of Guangyang, and in 517 was chosen as a censor in a test; in 533 he became reader-in-waiting and secretary, later Attendant-in-Ordinary and General of the Central Army. His works include the Wen Shidu Ji and the Yong'an Ji, his stele texts such as the Inscription for the Temple on Hanling Mountain were prized, and the poem Pounding Clothes is in the Gu Shi Yuan. In 547 he was arrested in the Yuan Jin plot against Gao Cheng and starved to death in the Jinyang jail.
Life and times
Dates 496 CE–547 CE