Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhang Wei
High to mid Tang poet from Henei, jinshi of 743 and Vice Minister of Rites, anthologised in the Heyue Yinglingji; his Dai Beizhou Laoweng Da is his best-known poem.
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 Zheng Yan
Zhang Wei, courtesy name Zhengyan, came from Henei (today's Qinyang, Henan) and passed the jinshi in 743. He served in Feng Changqing's Anxi headquarters and as a ministry secretary, met the exiled Li Bai at Xiakou in 758, governed Tanzhou and, as Vice Minister of Rites around 771, presided over the examinations for three years. Yin Fan's Heyue Yinglingji anthologised his poems. His collection is lost; the Complete Tang Poems keeps forty, with Dai Beizhou Laoweng Da the most representative.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; jinshi 743 CE, still living in 777 CE