朱权

Public information about Zhu Quan's life and nationality is limited. What can be confirmed at present is that two of his works survive, dealing respectively with the music and prosody of drama and with tea. His representative work, The Correct Rhymes of Great Harmony (Taihe Zhengyin Pu), is a classical treatise on drama theory that covers musical notation, phonology and evaluations of dramatists, and is an important source for the study of northern drama's prosody and of Yuan and Ming drama. His Tea Manual (Cha Pu) is a specialized work on tea culture, describing the picking and processing of tea leaves, tasting and drinking, and related utensils. Judging from the works available, Zhu Quan's writing focuses on organizing and standardizing specialized knowledge; it is clearly structured and combines the compilation of materials with critical appreciation. In the library he is classified under social sciences and literary appreciation, which matches the way his works span both drama and tea culture. Because details of his life remain to be verified, no speculation is offered here; his profile and influence are presented solely on the basis of his works.