Mid-to-late-Míng official and anthologist. Zì Zǐtián 子田. Native of Nèixiāng 內鄉 (Hénán). Jìnshì of Jiājìng guǐchǒu (1553). Served as Guìzhōu tíxué fùshǐ (Vice Education Commissioner of Guìzhōu), reassigned later to Chíyáng shānchéng. CBDB has no confident dating match for him; life-dates not securely established.
He is known principally as the compiler of two paired anti-Qīzǐ anthologies:
(1) KR4h0113 Sòng yìpǔ jí 宋藝圃集 (22 juǎn; 13 years of work, completed Lóngqìng 1 = 1567) — 236 named Sòng poets + 51 fùlù contributors, totalling 288 — a curatorial defence of Sòng verse against the Qīzǐ dismissal.
(2) KR4h0114 Yuán yìpǔ jí 元藝圃集 (4 juǎn; completed Wànlì 10 = 1582) — 108 Yuán poets, 625 poems.
Lǐ’s most-quoted epigram, from his preface to Yuán yìpǔ jí: Sòngshī gù yú lǐ; Yuánshī lín yú cí — “Sòng verse is fixated on philosophical principle; Yuán verse is bordering on song-lyrics”. This dual-formula became the canonical late-imperial characterisation of SòngYuán poetic limits. He worked alongside his younger brother Lǐ Yú 李餘 in the initial Sòng yìpǔ compilation.