- Wu Mingji
Wu Mingji (吴明济) was a sixteenth century Chinese scholar from the
Shaoxing region. He is best known for the compilation of "Chaoxian shi xuan" (朝鮮詩选), a collection of several hundred poems written by Korean scholars inclassical Chinese .Much of what is known about Wu Mingji is contained in the preface to "Chaoxian shi xuan". Wu visited Korea twice during the Imjin War, as an advisor to the Ming expeditionary army. Wu was able to meet with many of the Korean literati. In 1598, he met with
Heo Gyun , one of the leading scholars of theJoseon kingdom. Heo composed a poem in Wu's honour, in which he celebrated the common brotherhood of men despite their nationalities. On his second tour of Korea, Wu Mingqi made a concerted effort to collect the works of Korean poets.The final work Wu produced was the "Chaoxian shi xuan" ("Selected poems from Joseon"), the first Chinese anthology of Korean poetry. It included 340 poems by 112 Korean poets from the
Silla period onwards, and was divided into seven parts according togenre . The "Chaoxian shi xuan" became subject of scholarly interest in the 17th century, when it was catalogued bybibliographer s. The Qing scholar Qian Qianyi incorporated a dozen poems from Wu's collection into his "Li dai shi ji" (歷代詩集), as did Zhu Yizun into his "Ming shi zong" (明詩綜).Wu also penned a short history of
Goryeo entitled "Gaoli shi ji" ("Temporal record of Goryeo").
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