Ssu-Ma Hsiang-Ju

Born 179 B.C.; died 118 B.C. Chinese poet.

Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju worked in the Yüeh-fu, a special office for music, where he wrote religious songs and adaptations of lyric folk songs. He became famous for his fu, or odes written in rhymed prose. Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju’s works praised the emperor and the greatness of China. There is a distinctive lyricism in Where the Gate Is Long, a fu about the fate of an abandoned woman; the work is clearly influenced by folk songs. Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju’s style is colorful and hyperbolic. He created an original poetic language.