Yuán Zhěn 元稹 (779–831, zì Wēizhī 微之), of Hénán (modern Luòyáng) by ancestral seat (a Northern-Wèi Tuòbá / Xiānbēi descendant on the imperial Wèi Tuòbá line), was jìnshì of Zhēnyuán 19 (803) — the Bóxué hóngcí of the same year, in the same examination as Bái Jūyì 白居易, whence began their lifelong friendship and the Yuán Bái literary partnership. He served at the Censorate; was demoted multiple times to provincial posts (the Tōngzhōu sīmǎ, Yúzhōu cìshǐ episodes); and rose under Mùzōng in Chángqìng (821–824) to zhōngshū shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì — chief minister, briefly. CBDB id 32248 gives 779–831; the catalog meta uses the variant character form 元禛 (a print-shop graphic confusion of 禾/示 in 稹/禛); the standard form is 元稹.
Yuán’s literary contributions are central to the mid-Táng. His Yǔ Yuán Jiǔ shū (the long literary letter to Lǐ Jǐngjiǎn) is the founding theoretical statement of the xīn yuèfǔ movement; the 12 xīntí yuèfǔ he composed in Yuánhé 4 (809) parallel Bái Jūyì’s 50-piece set. His chuánqí Yīngyīng zhuàn 鶯鶯傳 (the romance of Zhāng Shēng and Cuī Yīngyīng) is the source-text of the entire Xīxiāng dramatic tradition. His Liánchāng gōng cí 連昌宮詞 is one of the great long-narrative gē on the An Lushan rebellion. The Qiǎnbēi huái 遣悲懷 mourning poems on his late wife Wéi Cóng are among the most-anthologized Táng poems.
Principal work in the corpus: Yuánshì Chángqìng jí KR4c0068 in 60 juǎn + bǔyí 6 juǎn; representing some 40 juǎn of loss against the documented original 100-juǎn form (per Bái Jūyì’s epitaph for Yuán).