Shěn Yuē 沈約
Zì Xiūwén 休文; posthumous title Yǐnhóu 隱侯 (“the Reclusive Marquis”). Native of Wǔkāng 武康 in Wúxīng 吳興 (modern Déqīng 德清, Zhèjiāng). Member of the great southern Wúxīng Shěn 吳興沈氏 lineage, four times “duke of the realm” across Sòng, Qí, Liáng.
Career: served all three southern dynasties of his lifetime. Under LiúSòng he held Bùbīng xiàowèi 步兵校尉 and Tàizǐ jiā lìng 太子家令. Under Qí (479–502) he was Hǎiyán xiàn lìng 海鹽縣令, then Bùbīng xiàowèi in the Wénhuì Crown Prince’s 文惠太子 household, and after Wénhuì’s death attached to the Jìnglíng wáng 竟陵王 Xiāo Zǐliáng 蕭子良 — at whose Jìnglíng salon (the Jìnglíng bā yǒu 竟陵八友, including Shěn, Xiè Tiǎo 謝朓, Wáng Róng 王融, Xiāo Yǎn 蕭衍 [later Liáng Wǔdì], Rèn Fǎng 任昉) the Yǒngmíng style of gǔtǐ poetry crystallised.
After Xiāo Yǎn’s accession as Liáng Wǔdì in 502 — to which Shěn was a principal architect — he served as Shàngshū púshè 尚書僕射, Tàizǐ shǎofù 太子少傅, and Shàngshū lìng 尚書令, dying in officio in 513.
His scholarly contributions are foundational. (1) The Sòngshū (KR2a0016), the standard dynastic history of the LiúSòng, in 100 juǎn, presented under Qí Wǔdì in Yǒngmíng 5 (487). (2) The Sìshēng 四聲 (Four-Tone) theory of Chinese phonology — the recognition of píng 平, shǎng 上, qù 去, rù 入 as the four basic tonal classes — set out in his Xiè Língyùn zhuàn lùn 謝靈運傳論 (in the Sòngshū) and in his lost Sìshēng pǔ 四聲譜. The doctrine is the foundation of all subsequent Chinese metrical and yùnshū analysis. (3) The associated theory of bā bìng 八病 (Eight Faults) of regulated verse-prosody, governing the Yǒngmíng tǐ 永明體 ancestral to Tang regulated verse. (4) Substantial fù, shī, and biǎo — collected as the Shěn Yǐnhóu jí 沈隱侯集.
His biographies are in Liáng shū 13 (KR2a0018) and Nán shǐ 57 (KR2a0024). CBDB id 134679 (lifedates 441–513 confirmed).