Northern-Sòng poet, biji compiler, and critic. Zì Dàofǔ 道輔, hào Hànshàng zhàngrén 漢上丈人 and LínHàn yǐnjū 臨漢隱居 (from his hermitage on the upper Hàn river). Native of Xiāngyáng 襄陽 (Húběi). Brother-in-law (qī xiōngdì) of Zēng Bù 曾布 (1036–1107), Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 colleague and the post-1100 reform-faction premier; his sister Zēngshì 曾氏 (Wèi Tài’s elder sister, wife of Zēng Bù) was herself a noted poetess, recorded in CBDB notes (id 21700). Wèi Tài himself never held substantive office. Active under Shénzōng, Zhézōng, and Huīzōng (c. 1070–1110); CBDB has no firm lifedates, but the fluorescence span fits the late-Xī-níng through Yuányòu through early-Xuān-hé period.
Two principal works survive. The Dōngxuān bǐ lù 東軒筆錄 KR3l0048, a 15-juǎn miscellany of court anecdote and Yuányòu-era political memoir, is the larger and historically more important. The LínHàn yǐnjū shīhuà 臨漢隱居詩話 KR4i0010 is his single short shīhuà. He is also widely (and reliably) identified as the actual author of the Bìyún xiá 碧雲騢, a satirical Yuányòu-era roster of political attacks against Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹 and Wén Yànbó 文彥博 that he circulated pseudonymously under Méi Yáochén’s 梅堯臣 name; this fabrication is what makes Wèi Tài’s surviving works partisan and pro-reformist (Xīníng-school) in their judgments. Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records all three works under his name. CBDB id 21700.