Shěn Déqián 沈德潛
Zì Quèshì 確士; hào Guīyú 歸愚; posthumous title Wénquè 文慤. Native of Chángzhōu 長洲 (modern Sūzhōu, Jiāngsū). Jìnshì of Qiánlóng 4 (1739) at the unusually advanced age of 67 — having failed the metropolitan examination 16 times before. Lifedates 1673–1769 (96 years).
One of the most influential Qing literary critics and anthologists of the eighteenth century. Held Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士, Lǐbù shìláng 禮部侍郎, Tàizǐ shǎoshī 太子少師. Founder of the Géliào pài 格律派 of Qing poetic theory (“strict observation of regulated form”). His three great anthologies — the Gǔ shī yuán 古詩源 (1719, Yùxuǎn gǔ shī yuán), the Tang shī biéshí jí 唐詩別裁集 (1717, expanded 1763), and the Míng shī biéshí jí 明詩別裁集 (1739) — were the canonical poetic anthologies of the late Qing and early Republican period and shaped the standard Tang and Ming poetic canons through the early 20th century.
As a Wǔyīngdiàn editor, Shěn Déqián was the principal kǎozhèng compiler for the Jiù Tángshū (KR2a0026) — 88 juǎn of collation notes — and contributed to the kǎozhèng of the Xīn Tángshū (KR2a0027) and the Jiù Wǔdài shǐ (KR2a0029). His kǎozhèng work was substantial.
Posthumously implicated in the Xú Shùkuí 徐述夔 case under the wénzì yù 文字獄 of 1778; his ranks were posthumously revoked, his name removed from the Xiánliáng cí, and his collected works were proscribed — though restored later under the Jiāqìng emperor.
His biography is in Qīng shǐ gǎo 305 (KR2a0039).