HSIEH LING-YN

born 385, Yang-hsia [T'ai-k'ang], China died 433, Canton also called Hsieh K'ang-lo, Pinyin Xie Lingyun, or Xie Kanglo prominent Chinese writer of the Six Dynasties era, known chiefly as a nature poet. The scion of an aristocratic house associated with the displaced southern court, Hsieh was an official under the Eastern Chin and Liu-Sung dynasties, but factional intrigues later disrupted his career, leading to his frequent dismissal and eventual execution in exile. As a devout Buddhist who supported the famed Mount Lu Monastery (in modern Kiangsi province), Hsieh both translated and wrote religious works. His literary reputation, however, derived from his poetry, particularly his evocation of a spiritual presence in the wild southern landscape. His erudite, imagistic verse set the fashion for his age, prompting early critics to prize his shan-shui, or mountain and stream, landscapes above the more pastoral t'ien-yan, or field and garden, scenes depicted by T'ao Ch'ien, his countryman and contemporary. Indeed, Hsieh's poems outnumber those of other Six Dynasties poets in the Wen Hsan (Literary Anthology), the 6th-century canon that defined medieval Chinese literary tastes.