Zhong Rong (; ca. 468–518) was a scholar of Chinese traditional poetics who lived during

Southern Dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered as ...

. His major work was titled ''Shiping'' 詩評 (''Criticism of Poetry'') which was renamed ''Shipin'' 詩品 (''Ranking Poetry'') in the

Northern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

. This slim volume is the earliest known which aims to evaluate Chinese poets and their poetry. Its introduction presents a poetic theory which connected poetry with the concept of " qi". Zhong Rong wrote that the more philosophical poems written during the reign of

Emperor Huai of Jin Emperor Huai of Jin (; 284 – March 14, 313), personal name Sima Chi (司馬熾), courtesy name Fengdu (豐度), was an emperor of the Jin dynasty. Emperor Huai was captured in July 311 ( Disaster of Yongjia) and later executed in 313 under t ...

overemphasized the lofty ideas of the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch, or Huangdi ( zh, t=黃帝, s=黄帝, first=t) in Chinese, is a mythical Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He is revered as ...

and

Laozi Laozi (), also romanized as Lao Tzu #Name, among other ways, was a semi-legendary Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosopher and author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (''Laozi''), one of the foundational texts of Taoism alongside the ''Zhuangzi (book) ...

resulted in "bland and tasteless" poetry. Yeh Chia-ying, translation Josey Shun and Bhikshuni Heng Yin, "Lectures on Tao Yuanming's Poems", a series of lectures at Gold Buddha Monastery, Canada (lecture tapes were transcribed by Tu Xiaoli, An Yi, and Yang Aidi)
"Vajra Bhodi Sea" No.345, February 1999

References

External links

* Chinese scholars Southern Qi poets Liang dynasty poets Year of birth unknown 468 births 518 deaths 5th-century Chinese poets 6th-century Chinese poets 6th-century Chinese writers {{China-poet-stub