Liáng critic and poet, zì Zhòngwěi 仲偉, of Yǐngchuān 潁川 Chángshè 長社 (modern Chánggě 長葛, Hénán). With his elder brother Zhōng Yán 鍾岏 and younger brother Zhōng Yǔ 鍾嶼 he was renowned for learning. During the Southern Qí Yǒngmíng 永明 era (483–493) he entered the Guózǐ jiān (Imperial Academy); under Wáng Jiǎn’s 王儉 sponsorship he was selected xiùcái of his native province and rose to Wángguó shìláng (attendant in a princely establishment). Crossing into the Liáng he served successively as Wángguó shìláng, Wǎnlínglìng, and finally as Jìshì (recorder) to the Prince of Jìnān 晉安王 (the later Liáng Jiǎnwéndì 簡文帝 — though held under the prince during his Jīngzhōu commandery, not yet on the throne); he died in office. His brother Yán was author of Liángshū 49 records his biography; Nán shǐ 72 records both brothers.
Zhōng’s Shīpǐn 詩品 KR4i0003 (completed c. 513–517), the first systematic critical evaluation of Chinese poetry from the Hàn down to his own day, ranks 122 (variant 123) poets in five-character verse into upper, middle, and lower grades, prefacing each grade with a discursive introduction. It is — together with Liú Xié’s 劉勰 Wénxīn diāolóng KR4i0001 — one of the two foundational works of Chinese literary criticism. Wilkinson dates Zhōng to ca. 468–518; CBDB does not record him; his lifedates derive from his official career and from the Liáng shū notice. Western scholarship: Wixted in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (IEAS, Berkeley, 2015); Brigitta Lee, Imitation, Remembrance and the Formation of the Poetic Past: Studies in the Early Medieval Chinese Reception of Tao Yuanming (Stanford, 2007); and Yeh’s translations in Wong Siu-kit and Lo (1996).