Fang Gan

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Fang Gan
方干
Born809
White Cloud Village, Tonglu, Zhejiang
Died888 (aged 78–79)
Mountain retreat in Jinghu
NationalityTang dynasty
Other namesFang Xiongfei (雄飞)
Xuanying (玄英)
OccupationPoet

Fang Gan (方干; 809–888), also known as Fang Xiongfei (雄飞)[1] and Xuanying (玄英),[2] was a Tang dynasty poet.

Life and career[edit]

Fang's father, Fang Su (方肅), was a jinshi and Hangzhou-based magistrate who founded the Fang Clan of White Cloud (白雲方氏) in White Cloud Village, Tonglu, Zhejiang.[3] According to the tenth-century Jianjie lu (鑑誡錄) or Records of Warnings,[4] Fang Gan was the fourteenth son of his family. He was nicknamed "Fang Sanbai" (方三拜, literally "Fang Three Bows") because of his idiosyncrasy of bowing three times to whomever he met. Despite being academically gifted, he failed the imperial examination more than ten times, apparently because of his cleft lip which examiners felt would bring Chinese academia into disrepute.[5]

Fang successfully underwent surgery for his cleft lip about a decade after retiring to Jinghu. According to a poem by Song dynasty poet Xu Tianyou (徐天佑), titled "Fan Gan Dao" (方幹島) or "Fan Gan's Island", this operation took place around 880.[6] Now referred to as "Buchun Xiansheng" (補唇先生) or "Mr Lip Mended", Fang spent his final years in a local mountain retreat.[5] Fang was a noted player of the guqin,[7] and enjoyed fishing and drinking in his spare time.[8]

Fang wrote countless poems in his lifetime, three hundred and seventy of which were preserved by one of his proteges and subsequently published in a ten-juan anthology by Wang Zan (王贊).[9] Following a popular campaign against "Qu mingru" (屈名儒) or "injustice to noted scholars", Fang was posthumously recognised as a successful imperial candidate.[10] A Chinese proverb about posthumous recognition thus goes, "Shenhou shi Fang Gan" (身後識方干) or "Not until after his death was Fan Gan recognised".[11]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Ma 2000, p. 495.
  2. ^ Kim 2022, p. 274.
  3. ^ Kim 2022, pp. 273–274.
  4. ^ Ma 2000, p. 492.
  5. ^ a b Ma 2000, p. 493.
  6. ^ Ma 2000, p. 496.
  7. ^ Li 2022, p. 84.
  8. ^ Vrebos 1992, p. 148.
  9. ^ Nugent 2019, p. 1152.
  10. ^ Ma 2000, pp. 493–495.
  11. ^ Rohsenow 2003, p. 134.

Works cited[edit]

  • Kim, Najung (2022). "Qian Xuan's 'Dwelling in the Floating Jade Mountains' and Song Loyalism". Journal of Song-Yuan Studies. 51: 261–303. doi:10.1353/sys.2022.0011.
  • Li, Xifan (2022). A General History of Chinese Art: Sui and Tang Dynasties. De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110790955.
  • Ma, Kan-Wen (2000). "Hare-Lip Surgery in the History of Traditional Chinese Medicine". Medical History. 44 (4): 489–512. doi:10.1017/S0025727300067090. PMC 1044324. PMID 11155720.
  • Nugent, Christopher M. B. (2019). "Literary Collections in Tang Dynasty China". In Paul W. Kroll (ed.). Critical Readings on Tang China. Vol. 3. Brill. pp. 1126–1170. ISBN 9789004380196.
  • Rohsenow, John S. (2003). ABC Dictionary of Chinese Proverbs. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824827700.
  • Vrebos, J. (1992). "Harelip Surgery in Ancient China: Further Investigations". Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 89 (1): 147–150. doi:10.1097/00006534-199289010-00033. PMID 1727249.

Further reading[edit]

  • Egan, Ronald (2021). "Poems on Painting from the High Tang to Later Tang Periods". Early Medieval China. 2021 (27: Essays in Honor of Pauline Yu on the Occasion of Her Retirement): 19–44. doi:10.1080/15299104.2021.1974732.
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