Late-Míng / early-Qīng 明清 classical scholar and poet, native of Wújiāng 吳江 in Sūzhōu 蘇州 prefecture (modern Jiāngsū). Zì Chángrú 長孺; hào Yúān 愚菴 (= “the Hut of the Foolish”). Lifedates 1606–1683 are firm.
Late-Míng zhū shēng 諸生 (registered student); never passed the Míng or Qīng examinations and never held office. Lived as a private scholar through the MíngQīng transition; did not serve the new dynasty. Bio in Qīngshǐ liè zhuàn 清史列傳 rúlín zhuàn 儒林傳; collected works Yúān xiǎo jí 愚菴小集 (in the Sìkù).
A prolific commentator on canonical and post-canonical texts. His two most-cited works in modern scholarship are: (1) Dù Gōngbù shī jí jí jiě 杜工部詩集集解 (“Collected Annotations on Dù Fǔ’s Poetry”) in 20 juǎn, the standard pre-modern Dù Fǔ commentary that combined the principal SòngYuánMíng readings into a comprehensive synthesis; and (2) Lǐ Yìshān shī jí jiān zhù 李義山詩集箋註 (“Annotations on Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s Poetry”), the parallel synthetic Lǐ Shāngyǐn commentary. He also wrote substantially on the Shī, the Yì, and the Shū: the Shàngshū bì zhuàn 尚書埤傳 (KR1b0051) in 17 juǎn (15 main + Kǎo yì 1 + Yì piān wěi shū jí Shū shuō yú 1) is his principal canonical work, distinguished by its synthetic-arbitrative method that — per the Sìkù tíyào — “weighs Hàn-learning and Sòng-learning against each other” (zhēn zhuó yú Hàn xué Sòng xué zhī jiān 斟酌于漢學宋學之間).
His firmest scholarly conviction was the authenticity of the Gǔwén Shàngshū Kǒng zhuàn, in tension with the rising anti-Gǔwén tide of his contemporaries (Yán Ruòqú, KR1b0048; Wáng Fūzhī, KR1b0047). The Sìkù compilers note this commitment as “piān pì” 偏僻 (biased and partial) — most pointedly, his classification of the Tāng gào preserved in Shǐjì (which Sīmǎ Qiān had received directly from Kǒng Ān’guó) as forged, in order to defend the very different Tāng gào of the Méi Zé recension.