Tang prodigy who drowned at about 26, known for the preface 滕王阁序 and the farewell lines 海内存知己,天涯若比邻: with a true friend somewhere in the world, the ends of the earth feel like next door.
" Hǎinèi cún zhījǐ, tiānyáruòbǐlín " shì Wáng Bó sòngbié péngyou shí xiě de.
'With a true friend somewhere within the seas, the ends of the earth feel next door' was written by Wang Bo when seeing a friend off.
Tips
culture
His 《滕王阁序》, written in his twenties at a banquet in 南昌, contains the most famous couplet of Chinese parallel prose: 落霞与孤鹜齐飞,秋水共长天一色, 'the sunset clouds fly with a lone wild duck, the autumn water shares one color with the endless sky'.
usage
The word 腹稿, 'a draft in the belly', a text composed in one's head before it is written down, goes back to him: he would grind ink, drink, lie down with a quilt over his face, then get up and write the piece without changing a word.