阮阅

Ruan Yue was a literatus of the Song dynasty; public sources offer limited information about his life and official career. Four works are extant under his name, chiefly poetry-talk compilations and local verse descriptions, which suggest that his main energies went into organizing anecdotes of the poetic world and recording landscapes and local customs. The Shihua Zonggui, in a former and a latter collection, draws extensively on poetry talks, notebooks, and anecdotes from before and during the Song, arranged by category and combining critical remarks with background stories; it provides rich material for the study of classical poetic criticism and poets' anecdotes and stands as a substantial work among poetry-talk compilations. The Chenjiang Baiyong is a set of poems on the scenic spots of Chenzhou, one scene per poem, concise in form and colored by local topography and customs. His writing tends toward faithful record and compilation rather than personal argument, so its value lies chiefly in preserving documents and local cultural records; later scholars of poetry talk often cite it, and its classification under classical poetry and Eastern philosophy reflects its attention to both poetic art and thought.