Yuán Zhěn 元稹 (779–831, zì Wēizhī 微之), of Hénán (modern Luòyáng) by ancestral seat (a Northern-Wèi Tuòbá / Xiānbēi descendant on the imperial Wèi Tuòbá line), was jìnshì of Zhēnyuán 19 (803) — the Bóxué hóngcí of the same year, in the same examination as Bái Jūyì 白居易, whence began their lifelong friendship and the YuánBái literary partnership. He served at the Censorate; was demoted multiple times to provincial posts (the Tōngzhōu sīmǎ, Yúzhōu cìshǐ episodes); and rose under Mùzōng in Chángqìng (821–824) to zhōngshū shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì — chief minister, briefly. CBDB id 32248 gives 779–831; the catalog meta uses the variant character form 元禛 (a print-shop graphic confusion of 禾/示 in 稹/禛); the standard form is 元稹.
Yuán’s literary contributions are central to the mid-Táng. His Yǔ Yuán Jiǔ shū (the long literary letter to Lǐ Jǐngjiǎn) is the founding theoretical statement of the xīn yuèfǔ movement; the 12 xīntí yuèfǔ he composed in Yuánhé 4 (809) parallel Bái Jūyì’s 50-piece set. His chuánqí Yīngyīng zhuàn 鶯鶯傳 (the romance of Zhāng Shēng and Cuī Yīngyīng) is the source-text of the entire Xīxiāng dramatic tradition. His Liánchāng gōng cí 連昌宮詞 is one of the great long-narrative gē on the An Lushan rebellion. The Qiǎnbēi huái 遣悲懷 mourning poems on his late wife Wéi Cóng are among the most-anthologized Táng poems.
Principal work in the corpus: Yuánshì Chángqìng jí KR4c0068 in 60 juǎn + bǔyí 6 juǎn; representing some 40 juǎn of loss against the documented original 100-juǎn form (per Bái Jūyì’s epitaph for Yuán).