Quán Déyú 權德輿 (759–818)
Zì Zàizhī 載之; posthumous shì Wén 文 (whence Wéngōng 文公). Native of Tiānshuǐ 天水 (modern southeast Gānsù) by family origin, resident at Chángān. The principal YuánHé 元和-period (806–820) prose stylist of the generation before Hán Yù 韓愈 and the most important mid-Tang literary patron of his time.
Xiánliángfāngzhèng 賢良方正 examination at the close of Dàlì (ca. 779). Successively Tàicháng bóshì 太常博士, zuǒ bǔquē 左補闕, Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士, and zhī lǐbù gòngjǔ 知禮部貢舉 (in Zhēnyuán 17 = 801, a critical posting controlling the jìnshì examinations of the rising YuánHé generation). In Yuánhé 5 (810) promoted to zhōngshū shìláng tóngzhōngshūménxiàpíngzhāngshì 中書侍郎同中書門下平章事 (= zǎixiàng); served until 815, when factional intrigues caused his demotion. Died en route to a southern provincial posting in 818 aged 60.
Through his Hànlínyuàn and Lǐbù postings he systematically promoted the rising YuánHé generation: Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元, Bái Jūyì 白居易, and Yuán Zhěn 元稹 all owed elements of their early careers to him. His extensive xù prefaces for contemporaries — including the surviving prefaces to Wú Yún 吳筠’s collection KR4c0030 and Dúgū Jí 獨孤及’s collection KR4c0034 — are foundational documents of mid-Tang literary biography. He is also the author of the Wú zūnshī zhuàn 吳尊師傳 (KR5d0076), a biography of Wú Yún.
His extant collection is the Quán Wéngōng jí KR4c0040 in 10 juǎn, a fraction of the original 50-juǎn corpus; only his shī and fù survive. CBDB confirms 759–818 (cbdbId 13624); the date 761 in earlier reference works is a one-year displacement.