Preface to Lanting Collection is also called Preface to Lanting Collection, Preface to Lanting, Preface to He Lin, Preface to Zan and Zan Tie. On March 3rd, the 9th year of Yonghe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 353), 4/kloc-0 military and political dignitaries such as Wang Xizhi, Xie An and Sun Chuo "wrote poems" in Yinshan Lanting (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang). At the meeting, Wang Xizhi wrote a preface for their poems. The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion narrates the beauty of the landscape around the Orchid Pavilion and the joy of the party, and expresses the author's feelings about the impermanence of life and death.
This preface is concise, elegant and meaningful, which represents Wang Xizhi's prose style. And its words are exquisite and catchy. It is a masterpiece of ancient parallel prose. Preface to Lanting Collection has its own merits in several aspects of parallel prose. This article embodies Wang Xizhi's positive outlook on life, which is in sharp contrast with the inaction advocated by Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi.
Brief introduction of the author
Wang Xizhi (303-36 1 year), a Han nationality with few words, was named Lian Zhai. Wang crowded out Li, Cao, Kai and Xing, studied brushwork, copied and imitated by hand, and got rid of the style of writing in Han and Wei Dynasties, forming a school of his own, with far-reaching influence. The representative works are: On Le Yi, Huang Tingjing, Seventeen Essays in Cursive Script and Qi Xingshu. He was a calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and was honored as a "book saint" by later generations. Together with his son Wang Xianzhi, he is called "Two Kings".