Writers › Writer / Poet
Lu Jue
Southern Qi poet from Wu Commandery whose letter to Shen Yue disputing the new tonal rules is a key document of Six Dynasties literary criticism; he died aged twenty-eight.
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 Han Qing
Lu Jue, courtesy name Hanqing, was born in 472 at Wu in Wu Commandery (today's Suzhou). He was recommended as xiucai in 491 and served as a military aide. Late in the Yongming era he exchanged letters with Shen Yue, opposing the tonal and parallel rules of the Yongming style; his letter, preserved in the Nan Qi Shu, and Shen's reply are central sources for Six Dynasties criticism. When his father was executed in 499 over Xiao Yaoguang's revolt, he died of grief. A dozen or so poems survive in the Wen Xuan and Yuefu Shiji.
Life and times
Dates 472 CE–499 CE