Ssu-Ma Hsiang-Ju

Ssu-Ma Hsiang-Ju 

Born 179 B.C.; died 118 B.C. Chinese poet.

Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju worked in the Yüeh-fu, a special office for music, where he wrote religious songs and adaptations of lyric folk songs. He became famous for his fu, or odes written in rhymed prose. Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju’s works praised the emperor and the greatness of China. There is a distinctive lyricism in Where the Gate Is Long, a fu about the fate of an abandoned woman; the work is clearly influenced by folk songs. Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju’s style is colorful and hyperbolic. He created an original poetic language.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
“Poema o Tzu-hsü.” In Anlologiia kitaiskoi poezii, vol. 1. Moscow, 1957.
“Poema o Tzu-hsü.” In Kitaiskaia klassicheskiaia proza. Translated by Academician V. M. Alekseev. Moscow, 1959.

REFERENCES

Ssu-ma Ch’ien. Izbrannoe. Moscow, 1956.
Lisevich, I. S. “Khan’skie fu i tvorchestvo Syma Sianzhu.” In Literatura drevnego Kitaia. Moscow, 1969.
Hervouet, Y. Un Poète de cour sous les Han: Sseu-ma Sieng-jou. Paris, 1964.