马致远 (Mǎ Zhìyuǎn) · Ma Zhiyuan, Yuan dynasty playwright and…

Meanings

1 Ma Zhiyuan, Yuan dynasty playwright and sanqu poet

About Ma Zhiyuan

c. 1250–1321 · 诗人 poet

One of the four great dramatists of 元曲, author of the play 汉宫秋. Every pupil learns his short 天净沙·秋思, which opens 枯藤老树昏鸦, 'withered vines, old trees, crows at dusk'.

Also called 东篱、曲状元

Characters

Examples

HSK 3

马致远的《天净沙·秋思》只有二十八个字。

Mǎ Zhìyuǎn de 《 Tiānjìngshā · Qiūsī 》 zhǐyǒu èrshíbā ge zì.

Ma Zhiyuan's 'Autumn Thoughts', to the tune Tian Jing Sha, is only twenty-eight characters long.

HSK 7-9

马致远是元朝的剧作家。

Mǎ Zhìyuǎn shì Yuáncháo de jùzuòjiā.

Ma Zhiyuan was a playwright of the Yuan dynasty.

Tips

culture

His autumn poem strings images together with hardly a verb and ends 夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯, 'the sun sets in the west; a heartbroken man at the edge of the world'. The Yuan critic 周德清 called it 秋思之祖, 'the ancestor of all autumn poems'.

history

He is one of the four great Yuan dramatists, with 关汉卿, 白朴 and 郑光祖. His best-known play, 《汉宫秋》, tells the story of 王昭君, the Han palace lady sent to marry a Xiongnu ruler.