Ōuyáng Zhān 歐陽詹 (757–802), zì Xíngzhōu 行周, was a Quánzhōu 泉州 native (modern Fújiàn) — the first major literary figure from Fujian and posthumously honored as the patron literary saint of Mǐn (Fujian) culture. He took the jìnshì in Zhēnyuán 8 (792) as part of the celebrated Lónghǔ bǎng 龍虎榜 (“Dragon-Tiger List”) cohort that included Hán Yù 韓愈, Lǐ Guān 李觀, Cuī Qún 崔羣, and others — all from the mén (school) of Lù Zhì 陸贄. He rose to sìmén zhùjiào (Lecturer at the Four Gates Academy) and died in office in 802 at the age of 46.
His gǔwén prose, while not at Hán Yù’s level, was already in classical archaizing register and stood well above contemporary parallel-prose writers. Hán Yù wrote the elegiac Ōuyáng shēng āicí on his death — one of Hán’s most personal pieces. Ōuyáng’s Tàiyuán zèngjì (the affair with a Tàiyuán courtesan, allegedly producing her death from grief and the celebrated severed-plait token) became a stock literary motif in Sòng cí and Yuán drama; the tíyào of his collection (KR4c0056) defends its essential historicity against Chén Zhènsūn’s skepticism.
Principal work in the corpus: Ōuyáng Xíngzhōu wénjí KR4c0056 in 10 juǎn. CBDB id 93730.