Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱 (813–858, zì Yìshān 義山, hào Yùxī shēng 玉谿生 and Fánnán shēng 樊南生), of Huáizhōu Hénèi 懷州河內 (modern Hénán Qìnyáng), was jìnshì of Kāichéng 2 (837). His career was structurally entangled with the NiúLǐ factional struggle: he received early literary patronage from the Niú faction’s Lìnghú Chǔ 令狐楚 (his gǔwén and sìliù parallel-prose teacher), then in Kāichéng 2 married the daughter of Wáng Màoyuán 王茂元 (a Lǐ Déyù faction adherent), permanently alienating Lìnghú Tāo 令狐綯 (Chǔ’s son, leading Niú faction politician). His subsequent career was a sequence of mid-rank staff positions in regional military and gubernatorial offices; he ended as Dōngchuān jiédù pànguān and jiǎnjiào Gōngbù lángzhōng, dying at 46.
Lǐ is, with Dù Mù 杜牧, the supreme WǎnTáng poet — the LǐDù (or WēnLǐ, with Wēn Tíngyún 溫庭筠) late-Táng pairing. His verse — including the Jǐn sè 錦瑟, the Wútí 無題 series, Mǎwéi èr shǒu, Lè yóu yuán, Jiǎshēng, and Bì chéng sān shǒu — is the canonical exemplar of the dense, allusive, polysemous late-style. The Sòng-period Xīkūn tǐ 西崑體 took Lǐ as its model. Lǐ also wrote the Lǐ Chángjí xiǎozhuàn (the small biography of 李賀 appended to the Chānggǔ jí = KR4c0060), and major sìliù parallel-prose works of which only fragments survive (the bulk of his prose corpus, originally 80+ juǎn, is now lost).
Principal works in the corpus: Lǐ Yìshān shī jí KR4c0074 (3 juǎn, the canonical verse collection); Lǐ Yìshān shī jí zhù KR4c0075 (Zhū Hèlíng’s 朱鶴齡 foundational Qīng commentary on the verse); Lǐ Yìshān wénjí jiānzhù KR4c0076 (the Xú Shùgǔ + Xú Jiǒng Qīng prose-recovery edition). Also the appended biography of Lǐ Hè in KR4c0060. CBDB id 24412.