The Chinese poet and critic Lu Chi (261-303) is best known for his Wen-fu, one of the finest works of criticism and esthetics by a Chinese, and a masterpiece in the poetic style of the fu.

Lu Chi, with the courtesy name Shih-heng, was of a distinguished family in the service of the Wu kingdom (south of the Yangtze) during the Three Kingdoms period. Both his grandfather Lu Sun and father, Lu K'ang, were brilliant military leaders and statesmen-scholars for the kingdom of Wu, but soon after Lu K'ang's death its fortunes rapidly declined. Both Lu K'ang's sons, Lu Chi and the year-younger Lu Yün, carried on the martial tradition of the family but a achieved greater fame as men of letters.

When Wu fell before the invading forces of the Chin, Chi, then 19, and Yün escaped to their family estate at Hua-t'ing in...