Sima Xiangru

Sima Xiangru's names
	Given name	Style name
Traditional	司馬相如	長卿
Simplified	司马相如	长卿
Pinyin	Sīmǎ Xiāngrú	Chángqīng
Wade-Giles	Ssu1-ma3 Hsiang1-ju2	Chang2-ch'ing1

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Sima (司馬).

Sima Xiangru, also known as Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117 BC) was a Chinese writer. He was a minor official of the Western Han Dynasty, but was better known for his poetic skills, jiu business, and controversial marriage to the widow Zhuo Wenjun after both eloped. One of his most famous works is the "Chang Men Fu" (literally "Ode of the Wide Gate"), written in the style fu, of rhymed prose under commission from a former Empress. In fact, Sima was largely responsible for establishing fu as a literary genre. He was also a guqin player.

Much is known about Sima Xiangru through Sima Qian's biography of him, Shij ji 117.

See also

• Fu (poetry)
• Han poetry

References

• Loewe, Michael. (1986). "The Former Han Dynasty," in The Cambridge History of The Cambridge History: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 103–222. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521243270.