Late-Sòng / Yuán-period 宋元 classicist, native of Xiūníng 休寧 county in Huīzhōu 徽州 (Xīn’ān 新安, modern Ānhuī). Zì Shòuwēng 壽翁; hào Dìngyǔ 定宇; sometimes also called Dōngfù 東阜. Lifedates 1252–1334 (per Yuánshǐ rúxué zhuàn 元史儒學傳, confirmed by his own dated writings: he was 83 suì at death). Frequently cited in YuánMíng Shàngshū literature simply as “Mr Chén of Xīn’ān” (Xīn’ān Chénshì 新安陳氏) — see for example 董鼎’s Shū zhuàn zuǎnzhù 書傳纂註, where the citation refers to Chén Lì.
After the Sòng fall (1279) Chén Lì retreated into reclusion at home, refused all official invitations, and lived as a private teacher for 38 years; only in Yánȳòu 1 / 1314 (jiǎyín), aged 63, after the Yuán court’s reinstatement of the civil examinations on a Zhū Xī-orthodox basis, did he agree to sit, passing the Zhèjiāng provincial examination (xiāngshì 鄉試). Illness prevented him from completing the metropolitan examination the following year; two years later he sent a memorial of policy advice (shàngshū gàn zhízhèng 上書干執政) to the chief councillors and received no reply. He returned home and lived out his remaining years in Xiūníng. Bio in Yuánshǐ Rúxué zhuàn.
In Shàngshū studies he produced two works: (1) the early Shū shuō zhézhōng 書說折衷 (preface preserved in his collected works Dìngyǔ jí 定宇集; the work itself now lost), which already in the spirit of Zhū Xī’s yǔlù method tried to weigh Cài Shěn’s Shū jízhuàn against rival readings — explicitly noting the disjuncture between Zhū Xī’s “comprehend the comprehensible, leave alone the unintelligible” position and Cài’s heroic glossing of every passage; and (2) the late Shàngshū jízhuàn zuǎnshū 尚書集傳纂疏 (KR1b0027) in 6 juǎn, prefaced after the Yuán Yánȳòu examination reform (1313/1314), which deliberately retreats from his earlier critical position and treats Cài’s commentary as the institutional standard, supplementing it (zēng bǔ 增補) rather than correcting it. The Sìkù compilers explicitly identify the political-curricular cause of this shift: under the Yánȳòu examination reform, deviation from the ZhūCài line had become institutionally unwise.
His other significant works are the Lǐjì zuǎn yán 禮記纂言 (lost), the Lìdài tōnglüè 歷代通略 (a chronological summary of dynastic history, separately in the Sìkù), and the Dìngyǔ jí 定宇集 (collected works, also in the Sìkù).