冯班

Public information about Feng Ban is limited; his dates of birth and death, native place and nationality are not conclusively recorded. Judging from the surviving works, he was a traditional Chinese man of letters whose interests spanned poetics, calligraphy and miscellaneous notes. Four of his works are included in the collection, namely Dunyin Zalu, Dunyin Shuyao and Da Wan Jiye Shi Wen. Among them, Dunyin Zalu exists both as a collected edition and as an edition attributed to Feng Ban of the Qing dynasty; Dunyin Shuyao discusses calligraphy; and Da Wan Jiye Shi Wen sets out his views on poetry in question-and-answer form. These works focus on classical poetry criticism, calligraphic technique and reading notes, and are often classified under Eastern philosophy and classic works. His style tends toward note-form criticism, listing observations in concise language and showing the speculative character of traditional literati writing on scholarship and the arts. Because the sources are limited, biographical details and intellectual lineage cannot be reliably established, and readers may approach his views on poetry and calligraphy through the works mentioned above.