Zhōu Bì 周弼 (c. 1194 – c. 1255), zì Bóbì 伯弜. A native of Wènyáng 汶陽 (in modern Tài’ān 泰安, Shāndōng 山東). A late-Sòng poet of the Jiānghú 江湖 (“Lakes-and-Rivers”) school, best known today as the compiler of the Sāntǐ Tángshī 三體唐詩 (one of the canonical late-imperial Táng-poetry pedagogical anthologies).
Lifedates. CBDB person 40170 gives no firm birth-or-death year; the catalog meta records fl. 1228. From Lǐ Gōng’s preface to KR4d0369 (dated Bǎoyòu dīngsì, 1257), Lǐ states that he and Zhōu were “born in the same cyclical year”, “lived in the same neighbourhood”, and “discussed poetry for more than thirty years” — and that by 1257 Zhōu was already “across the Nine Springs”, that is, deceased. This forces Zhōu’s death-year before 1257, and probably some years before. Working back, if the shared gēngzǐ cyclical year is Qìngyuán 6 (1200) then both poets were born c. 1200; if instead it is Jiāxī 4 (1204) the timing is c. 1204. The dating used here (c. 1194 – c. 1255) reflects the convention of post-1218 jìnshì age (per the tíyào’s discussion); the exact dates are unresolved.
Examination and career. Jìnshì of Jiādìng 11 (1218). Held a series of administrative posts during forty years of bureaucratic travel through WúChǔ 吳楚 and JiāngHàn 江漢. The exact offices are not securely recorded.
Poetic identity. Zhōu Bì is widely associated with the Jiānghúshī 江湖詩 movement of the early- and mid-13th century — the Jiāngnán-publishing circle around Chén Qǐ 陳起’s Jiānghú jí (the bookseller and “Chén Jiěyuán” 陳解元 of the Péngběijiē, Lín’ān). His verse is characterized in the Sìkù tíyào as not particularly elevated, working in the Jiānghú-school’s accessible Late-Táng register.
Sāntǐ Tángshī. Zhōu’s greater fame today is from his three-form Táng-poetry selection Sāntǐ Tángshī 三體唐詩 (also titled Tángxián sāntǐ shīfǎ 唐賢三體詩法), arranged in the three forms of five-character lǜ, seven-character lǜ, and juéjù. This anthology became one of the central late-Sòng-and-Yuán pedagogical tools for studying Táng poetry, was transmitted widely in Yuán and Míng editions, and exerted substantial influence on Edo Japanese poetic education.
Misidentification. Huáng Yújì’s 黃虞稷 Qiānqǐngtáng shūmù 千頃堂書目 erroneously identifies Zhōu Bì as a man of Xīnjiàn 新建 (Jiāngxī) and as an early-Míng Hóng-wǔ-era provincial instructor (Míngjīngguān xùndǎo 明經官訓導). The Sìkù editors of KR4d0369 correct this from the internal evidence of Lǐ Gōng’s 1257 preface (where Zhōu is already dead and from Shāndōng, not Jiāngxī).
Sources. Lǐ Gōng’s preface to KR4d0369; Sìkù tíyào; Sòngshǐ yìwén zhì 宋史藝文志 (records Sāntǐ Tángshī); Michael A. Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes (2013). CBDB 40170.
Works in the Kanripo corpus. KR4d0369 Duānpíng shījùn 端平詩雋, 4 juàn — posthumously edited by Lǐ Gōng (李龏).