Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修
Zì Yǒngshū 永叔, hào Zuìwēng 醉翁 (“the drunken elder”), in old age Liùyī jūshì 六一居士 (“the retired gentleman of the six ones”); posthumous title Wénzhōng 文忠. Native of Jízhōu 吉州 Yǒngfēng 永豐 (modern Jiāngxī), through Lúlíng 廬陵 identification. Jìnshì of Tiānshèng 8 (1030).
One of the Tang-Sòng gǔwén movement’s principal figures and one of the most important statesmen, historians, and writers of the Northern Sòng. Offices included Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士, Shūmì fùshǐ 樞密副使, and Cānzhī zhèngshì 參知政事. Close associate of Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹 in the Qìnglì reforms; demoted to Chúzhōu 滁州 in 1045 following the collapse of those reforms (where he wrote the famous Zuìwēng tíng jì 醉翁亭記). Mentor to a generation of younger scholars including 曾鞏, 蘇軾, and 王安石.
Works include: the Xīn Tángshū 新唐書 (co-compiled with Sòng Qí 宋祁), the Xīn Wǔdài shǐ 新五代史 (sole authorship), a monumental literary collection Ōuyáng Wénzhōng gōng jí 歐陽文忠公集, the Jígǔlù 集古錄 (one of the foundational works of Chinese epigraphy), the Shīběnyì 詩本義 (his Shījīng commentary, catalytic in the Sòng reinterpretation of the Xù), and the Liùyī shīhuà 六一詩話 (one of the earliest shīhuà genre works).
As junior member of the three principal compilers, with 王堯臣 and 王洙, of the Chóngwén zǒngmù 崇文總目 (KR2n0001, submitted 1041). The per-class prefaces he wrote for that catalogue survive in his collected works and served as the primary source for the Sìkù editors’ reconstruction of its discursive apparatus.