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    The Western Chin Poet Chang Hsieh

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    Chang Hsieh lived in the latter half of the third century, contemporary with the poets Lu Chi, P'an Yüeh and Tso Ssu. Outside of the ten "Miscellaneous Poems" and one "Historical Poem" contained in the Wen hsüan, however, nothing remains of his work except a few poems and fragments of a collection of rhymed pieces of various types originally in ten or more sections. Yet, within the general poetic fashion of the time which sought primarily for elegance and extravagance of expression, even these few works reveal characteristics of their own. Chang Hsieh's works excel in new modes of expression and fresh turns of phrase, particularly in his descriptions of landscapes. In addition they contain phrases which bear a striking resemblance to the works of T'ao Yüan-ming who lived some hundred years later. This resemblance does not end with a similarity of isolated phrases. Like T'ao Yüan-ming after him, Chang Hsieh was attempting to give a more direct expression to human thoughts and emotions which had heretofore been hampered by the bonds of formalism, and to achieve a simpler and more forceful expression of poetic spirit. Hence the mastery with which he employed the impromptu type of poem which, for lack of a more appropriate classification, is referred to as "Miscellaneous Poems" (tsa-shih). Thus although Chang Hsieh's works cannot compare in complexity of thought and expression with those of T'ao Yüan-ming, they may be counted as one of the sources of inspiration which T'ao Yüan-ming later drew upon
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