He is probably best known as the originator of the first deliberately applied rules of tonal euphony (so called "four tones and eight defects" 四聲八病) in the history of Chinese prosody.
[4] The Six Poems on Remembering get fairly close to being specifically erotic, which is rather unusual for Classical Chinese verse (at least as it has been handed down).
The verse on remembering her when she sleeps includes the lines: Shen Yue was one of the most import writers in terms of contributing to the ideas behind much of later Classical Chinese poetry.
Shen Yue is also credited with being the first to apply the term Yuefu in a generic sense to the Han dynasty ballad style poetry, as opposed to the earlier meaning of referring to the Yuefu, or the Han imperial Music Bureau[8] Shen Yue was largely responsible for writing and compiling the Book of Song, a history of the Liu Song dynasty.
Just before his death, Shen Yue fell gravely ill, and dreamt that Xiao Baorong used a sword to cut off his tongue.