Qiao Ji

Qiao Ji (, died 1345) also known as Qiao Jifu (乔吉甫) was a Chinese dramatist and poet in the Yuan Dynasty. He was originally from Taiyuan in Shanxi, but lived in the West Lake area in Zhejiang province. His courtesy name was Mengfu (梦符) and his pen name was Shenghao Weng (笙鹤翁). The ''Record of Ghosts'' (录鬼簿) describes Qiao as having an aloof and intimidating demeanor, to the point people were in awe of him. Eleven of his plays survive.

Two of his plays, ''Jinqian Ji'' (金钱记) and ''Yangzhou Meng'' (扬州梦), were particularly celebrated in his day and are now considered part of the classical canon.

Poetry

Much of his ''sanqu'' lyric poetry has survived, including 209 ''xiaoling'' lyrics and 11 ''taoshu'' suites. All were collected in the ''Complete Sanqu Poems''. His collected works, ''Qiao Ji Ji'', appeared in 1986. Qiao's lyrics combine literary language with the language of the street. One of his methods was referred to as the "six character prescription", which he explained as a lyric poem with a "phoenix head, pig's belly and a leopard tail". Qiao wrote that he had "wandered for forty years", travelling around many of the central and southern areas of China. In ''Looking for Plums'', he described an episode of his wanders in the countryside, visiting villages during winter until he came across a village in a wooded mountain where a beautiful woman lived.

Social criticism is also a recurring theme in Qiao Ji's literary works. This often manifested in his poetry, where he constructed imaginary worlds so that they could be rejected. For instance, in the poem ''On Myself'', the poetic persona enjoying his retirement from service described being included in a bureaucracy only to reject its manifestations such as the civil service examination system. Experts compare Qiao Ji's style with the work of Zhang Kejiu, in terms of its elegance and lucidity as well as the style and the use of pleasing sounds. The poem ''Sky-Clear Sand'' involved the combination of topic and comment construction, while his contemporaries wrote their poetry in a structure that began with a topic and followed with the comment.

Notes

References

* Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, ''Encyclopedia of Chinese Literature'', vol. 4, p. 2012.
* Li Xiusheng, ''Collected Works of Qiao Ji'', Shanxi Peoples’ Press, 1986.
* Bruce E.Carpenter, 'Chinese San-ch’ü Poetry of the Mongol Era: I', ''Tezukayama Daigaku kiyo'' (Journal of Tezukayama University), Nara, Japan, no. 22, pp. 57–60.
* Hu Qiaomu, ''The Great Encyclopedia of China'' (Chinese Literature, vol. 1), Beijing-Shanghai, 1986, pp. 622–623.
* Sui Shusen, ''Complete Yuan Dynasty Sanqu Lyrics'', vol. 1, Beijing, 1964, pp. 573–647.
* Lu, Weifen
"Qiao Ji"
''Encyclopedia of China'', 1st ed.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Qiao, Ji
Yuan dynasty poets
1345 deaths
People from Taiyuan
Poets from Shanxi
Year of birth unknown
Yuan dynasty dramatists and playwrights
14th-century Chinese dramatists and playwrights