Kong Shangren (; 1648–1718) was a

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

dramatist and poet best known for his '' chuanqi'' play '' The Peach Blossom Fan''"Frommer's China", Simon Foster et al., 2010, p. 383, about the last days of the Ming dynasty. Born in

Qufu Qufu ( ; zh, c=曲阜) is a county-level city in southwestern Shandong province, East China. It is located about south of the provincial capital Jinan and northeast of the prefectural seat at Jining. Qufu has an area of 815 square kilometers, ...

, Kong was a 64th-generation descendant of

Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...

. He guided the

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...

when he visited Qufu. ''The Peach Blossom Fan'' tells the story of the love story between the scholar Hou Fangyu and the courtesan Li Xiangjun, against the dramatic backdrop of the short history of the

Southern Ming The Southern Ming (), also known in historiography as the Later Ming (), officially the Great Ming (), was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and a series of rump states of the Ming dynasty that came into existence following the ...

. It remains a favourite of the Kun opera (

kunqu Kunqu (), also known as Kunju (), K'un-ch'ü, Kun opera or Kunqu Opera, is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. It evolved from a music style local to Kunshan, part of the Wu (region), Wu cultural area, and later came to dominate ...

) stage. Kong Shangren is known as the author of a curious poem dedicated to the eyeglasses, a Western innovation brought to

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

by the Portuguese. Spence, ''

The Search for Modern China ''The Search for Modern China'' is a 1990 non-fiction book by Jonathan D. Spence, published by Century Hutchinson and W. W. Norton & Company. It covers the period 1600 to 1989. According to Spence, the goal was to explain how Modern China was ...

'', 64–65.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kong, Shangren 1648 births 1718 deaths Qing dynasty poets People from Qufu Poets from Shandong Descendants of Confucius Writers from Jining 18th-century Chinese dramatists and playwrights 17th-century Chinese dramatists and playwrights

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