Zhang Ji (c. 766–830) was a Tang poet, writer, and calligrapher. His courtesy name was Wenchang; he was ranked eighteenth among his siblings and was known as Zhang Shuibu and Zhang Siye, as well as Hanmen dizi. His ancestral home was Wu Commandery (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu), and he later lived in Wujiang in Hezhou (present-day Hexian, Anhui); Liyang is also given as a native-place designation.
Life
During the fifteenth year of the Zhenyuan era (799), Zhang passed the jinshi examination. In the first year of Yuanhe (806), he was appointed Taichang Temple Taizhu. After years without promotion, poverty and an eye disease led Meng Jiao to call him the “poor, blind Zhang Taizhu.”
In the eleventh year of Yuanhe (816), Zhang became Guozi zhujiao, and in the fifteenth year (820) he moved to the post of Mishu lang. Following Han Yu’s recommendation, he was appointed Guozi boshi. In the second year of Changqing (822) he became Shuibu yuanwailang, served as Zhuke langzhong toward the end of the Baoli era, and in the second year of Dahe (828) became Guozijian siye; the office held at the end of his life is variously given as Guozijian siye or Shuibu langzhong, hence the designation Zhang Shuibu.
Zhang studied under Han Yu and received his praise; Han Yu valued him highly and recommended him for office. He exchanged poems and prose with Wang Jian, Meng Jiao, and Jia Dao, and was on friendly terms with Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen. His father-in-law was Hu Xiang, and his younger brother was Zhang Xiaoyuan.
Literary achievement
Zhang excelled in yuefu, especially old-style yuefu verse. His poems often use colloquial diction, with pointed and concentrated expression in a plain and natural manner. He was ranked with Wang Jian as the “Zhang-Wang yuefu”; his literary ideas were also close to Bai Juyi’s. Bai praised his old yuefu, and representative titles include “Song under the Frontier,” “The Grievance of a Campaigner’s Wife,” “Song of Gathering Lotus,” and “Song of Jiangnan.”
The Song scholar Wang Anshi, in his poem on Zhang Siye’s poetry, wrote that Zhang’s verse “looks ordinary yet is extraordinarily striking; it seems easily made, yet is the product of arduous labor.”
Works
Zhang’s collected works include 《張司業集》, whose standard edition has eight juan. A seven-juan 《張籍詩集》 is also cited, and titles such as 《張籍集》, 《木鐸集》, and 《論語注辨》 are associated with his writings. The number of juan of his poems in 《全唐詩》 is given variously as six or five; 《全唐詩續拾》 adds one poem.
References
- CBDB Zhang Ji (13575)
- 搜韵 張籍 (15628)
- 法鼓佛教人名规范数据库 張籍 (A011695)
- Wikidata Zhang Ji (Q836849)