Gě Lìfāng 葛立方 (d. 1164)
Zì Chángzhī 常之; hào Guīyú 歸愚 (“Return to Stupidity”). A native of Jiāngyīn 江陰 (in modern Jiāngsū) who later moved to Wúxìng 吳興 in Húzhōu 湖州. Son of Gě Shèngzhòng 葛勝仲 (1072–1144), a jìnshì of 1097 and Hànlín xuéshì, well known as a critic and bibliophile of the late Northern Sòng; grandson of Gě Shūyuán 葛書元. Jìnshì of Shàoxīng 8 (1138). Held office to Lǐbù lángzhōng 吏部郎中 and Zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人, with provincial service as governor of Yuánzhōu 袁州 and Jiànkāng 建康. He was forced from office in Shàoxīng 26 (1156) after Qín Huì’s death, in the political reshuffle that followed, and spent his last years in retirement at Wúxìng, where he wrote the Yùnyǔ yángqiū 韻語陽秋 (KR4i0023). Death in 1164.
Gě’s surviving works are the Guīyú jí 歸愚集 (recorded in the Sìkù as KR4d), the Lǎnzhēnzǐ lù 懶真子錄, and the Yùnyǔ yángqiū. He inherited from his father a strong Buddhist orientation that colours the Yùnyǔ yángqiū’s judgments — most controversially in its claim that Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修 came in the end to believe in the Buddhist hells. The Sìkù editors and Zhào Yǔshí 趙與峕 (in the Bīntuì lù) both criticize Gě for partisan Buddhist colouring and occasional factual slips, but conceded that the principal critical judgments are “stern and orthodox.”