Huángfǔ Shí 皇甫湜 (777–835), zì Chízhèng 持正, was a Mùzhōu 睦州 native (modern Zhèjiāng Jiàndé). Jìnshì of Yuánhé 1 (806). He served as Lùhún wèi (Sub-prefect of Lùhún), then in the central administration as Gōngbù lángzhōng (Director, Bureau of Construction). Of an impulsive and quarrelsome temperament — the Xīn Tángshū biography records repeated clashes with colleagues at the ministry — he eventually requested a sinecure-post and was attached to Péi Dù 裴度 as pànguān in Luòyáng.
Huángfǔ was, alongside Lǐ Áo 李翱, one of the two senior disciples of Hán Yù 韓愈 in the gǔwén movement. The standard verdict (originating in Lǐ Hàn’s Hán Wéngōng ménrén bēi) is that “Lǐ got Hán’s purity, Huángfǔ got Hán’s eccentricity (qí).” His prose is characteristically dense, archaic, and aggressive in tone. The famous Guāngfú sì bēi commission for Péi Dù (composed 829, lost between Táng end and Sòng) was the high point of his epigraphic career; the Dá Lǐshēng sānshū is his most-cited theoretical statement on prose. Although Hán Yù’s letter on Huángfǔ’s behalf claimed he was a major poet, no verse survives — and the tíyào of his collection (KR4c0054) accepts Yè Mèngdé’s verdict that verse simply was not his form.
Principal work in the corpus: Huángfǔ Chízhèng jí KR4c0054 in 6 juǎn, 38 prose pieces. CBDB id 94116.