Yao Shouzhong (姚守中) was a Chinese poet of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

. He is thought to have been from the city of

Luoyang Luoyang ( zh, s=洛阳, t=洛陽, p=Luòyáng) is a city located in the confluence area of the Luo River and the Yellow River in the west of Henan province, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zheng ...

in present

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

. His dates are unclear. However, he seems to have been the nephew of the writer and official Yao Sui (姚燧) who lived from 1238 to 1313. Yao Shouzhong would then have lived in the early 14th century. Likewise, this Yao Sui was himself the nephew of the celebrated official and scholar Yao Shu (1203–1280). The greater family had its origins in the province of

Liaoning ) , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = Clockwise: Mukden Palace in Shenyang, Xinghai Square in Dalian, Dalian coast, Yalu River at Dandong , image_map = Liaoning in China (+all claims hatched).svg , ...

and later moved to Luoyang. Yao Shouzhong appears to have been a local official functionary in Pingjiang in

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

. The ''Lu Guibu'' (彔鬼簿) notes only that Yao was a literary talent from the previous generation. "The Ox’s Grievance" (牛訴冤; ''Niu Suyuan'') is the only surviving literary work of the writer, although titles of the three of his plays have survived. Tao’s ''

sanqu ''Sanqu'' () is a fixed-rhythm form of Classical Chinese poetry or "literary song".Crump (1990), 125 Specifically ''sanqu'' is a subtype of the '' qu'' formal type of poetry. ''Sanqu'' was a notable Chinese poetic form, possibly beginning in th ...

'' suite, "The Ox’s Grievance", is a classic of the genre and is one of the great imaginative poems in the genre of ''sanqu'' poetry and Chinese literature as a whole. Although it has been suggested that "The Ox's Grievance" is a social satire, more likely it was intended as a literary burlesque or parody.

References

* Hu Qiaomu ed., ''The Great Encyclopedia of China'', Chinese Literature, vol. 2, Beijing-Shanghai, 1986, p. 1153. * Lu Weifen ed., ''Complete Yuan Period Sanqu Lyrics'', Liaoning, 2000, vol. 1, pp. 325–332. * Ma Liangchun and Li Futian ed., ''The Great Encyclopedia of Chinese Literature'', Tianlu, 1991, vol. 6, p. 4620. * Carpenter, Bruce E. 'Chinese San-ch’ü Poetry of the Mongol Era: I', ''Tezukayama Daigaku kiyo'' (Journal of Tezukayama University), Nara, Japan, no. 22, pp. 47–51. {{DEFAULTSORT:Yao, Shouzhong Yuan dynasty poets 14th-century Chinese poets Writers from Luoyang Poets from Henan