Pond Spring Grass

Author: Yu Zhanghua, selected and edited by Gai Cuijie
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Xie Lingyun (384-433), from Chen State Yangxia (now the area of Taikang County, Henan Province), was born into a prominent aristocratic family. His grandfather, Xie Xuan, was a renowned general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and served as one of the frontline commanders in the Battle of Fei River. He was appointed as the Military Commissioner of the seven provinces of Xu, Yan, Qing, Si, Ji, You, and Bing, and enfeoffed as the Duke of Kangle. His father, Xie Mian, though considered mentally disabled, held the position of Librarian. His mother, Lady Liu, was the niece of the calligrapher Wang Ningzhi. Xie Lingyun was born exceptionally intelligent, and his grandfather, Xie Xuan, was greatly astonished by him. He told his close associates, "I gave birth to Mian, how could Mian give birth to Lingyun!" After Xie Lingyun was born, Xie Xuan, moved by the thought that "descendants are rare," feared that he could not raise him at home and thus sent him to be raised in the Qiantang Du Mingshi academy. This is why Xie Lingyun was later called "the guest child" or "Xie Ke." Xie Lingyun's literary achievements were multifaceted. In addition to his landscape poetry, he also left behind fourteen fu (classical Chinese prose poems) and some prose works. Works like The Mountain Dwelling Fu and Memorial to the Court for Self-Defense are all worthwhile reads. The collected works of Xie Lingyun were recorded in the Sui Dynasty Book of Han as comprising nineteen volumes, but they were lost after the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, Jiao Jing published The Collected Works of Xie Kangle, while in the Qing Dynasty, Yan Kejun's Complete Prose of the Song Dynasty and the modern Lu Qinli's Poetry of the Pre-Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties compiled his poems and prose more comprehensively. Gu Shaobai's Collected Works of Xie Lingyun with Annotations (published by Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House in 1987) is the most complete edition of Xie's collected works to date.