Li Jiayou (李嘉祐; his dates are disputed: one tradition gives 719 as his birth year, another dates his death to 779, while other accounts place his death around the end of the Dali era or say that he died while serving as governor of Taizhou in the middle of the Jianzhong era) was a Tang poet and man of letters. His courtesy name was Congyi; he was ranked second in birth order, and his birth-order name is also given as Li Er. He came from Zhaozhou (present-day Zhao County, Hebei).
Life
After passing the Presented Scholar examination in 748, he was appointed a Corrector in the Palace Library and was sent on a mission to seek books; he later served as an Investigating Censor. During Emperor Suzong’s reign he held a yibu post. In the first year of the Zhide era (756), he was demoted for an offense to magistrate of Poyang and transferred in the second year of Qianyuan (759) to Jiangyin; he then entered the central administration as a zhongtailang and later served as governor of Taizhou and governor of Yuanzhou.
Under Emperor Daizong, he left the Taizhou post in the first year of Baoying (762) and traveled through Wu and Yue. Early in the Dali era he returned to court as an outer gentleman of the Ministry of Works and of the Department of Merit; between Dali 6 and 7 (771–772), he went out as governor of Yuanzhou. The account of his final years is not uniform: one version has him living in Suzhou after leaving Yuanzhou and dying around the end of Dali, while another has him serving as governor of Taizhou in the middle of the Jianzhong era and dying then.
He was friendly with Liu Changqing and Yan Wei. He had poetry-and-prose exchanges with Qian Qi and Lang Shiyuan, and presented poems or prose to Zhang Shuo, Yuan Zai, and Du Hongjian.
Poetry
Li Jiayou was known for poetry, whose graceful style often approached Qi–Liang models and could be ornate and delicate. He was grouped with Qian Qi, Lang Shiyuan, and Liu Changqing as the “Qian–Lang–Liu–Li”; Gao Zhongwu praised his literary brilliance and reputation, placed him among the leading poets of the revival, and judged his manner distinct from Qian and Lang, often close to Qi–Liang style and comparable to Wu Jun and He Xun.
Later assessments diverged. One described his verse as fluent and harmonically regular, with a sharply wrought manner despite lacking dense ornament; another ranked his seven-character quatrains among the finest of the mid-Tang. A later poetic essay judged the poems in the Zhongxing jianqi ji anthology rather ordinary, while admiring selected lines for their elegance.
Works
The titles and extent of his surviving works are reported differently. A one-juan collection is listed as 《李嘉祐詩》, or simply as a one-juan poetry collection; 《李嘉祐集》 is also said to survive in two juan under the alternate title 《臺閣集》, while another title is given as 《晏（台）閣集》. 《全唐詩》 preserves two juan of his poems, and 《全唐詩續拾》 adds three poems.
References
- CBDB Li Jiayou (93096)
- 搜韵 李嘉祐 (16501)
- Wikidata Li Jiayou (Q11095749)