谢翱

Xie Ao's life, official career, and dates of birth and death are very limited in publicly available sources. What can be confirmed at present is chiefly the three works that survive under his name: Songshi Chao: Xifa Ji Chao, Songshi Chao: Xifa JINGAO Chao, and Chuci Fangcao Pu. Judging from the titles and the common categories, his writing centers mainly on classical poetry, with some attention to literary appreciation. The first two, named after the "Xifa Ji" and "Xifa JINGAO," are selected editions of his poems, indicating that his verse was selected and copied within the tradition of Song poetry anthologies and possesses a certain documentary value; Chuci Fangcao Pu shows his interest in the Chuci tradition, focusing on the identification and interpretation of the plants and trees mentioned there, and has the character of annotation and cataloguing. Because full biographical records are lacking, our understanding of him today depends more on the works themselves: although his poetic subjects and style are hard to sketch comprehensively, the fact that his poems were included in anthologies suggests that he was not entirely silent in the Song poetic world. Readers wishing to know him should begin with these three surviving works and consider them in the context of Song poetry and Chuci studies.