| | Yang Xiong [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] |
 | | As a youth he probably was a student of Zhuang Zun, a reclusive marketplace fortune teller who refused to take office, opting instead to use divination and fortune-telling as a means to encourage virtue among the common people. |
 | | Yang Xiong’s reputation as a poet eventually reached the capital of Chang’an, and around 20 BCE he was summoned to the court of Emperor Cheng. |
 | | As Knechtges points out, most of the well known early writers of rhapsodies, such as Lu Jia (228-140 BCE) and Jia Yi (200-168 BCE), were not only poets but also scholar-officials who saw it as their duty to offer advice and remonstrance (jian) to rulers and did so through their poetic works. |
| www.iep.utm.edu /y/yangxion.htm (4927 words) |