Shī zhuàn dàquán 詩傳大全
The Comprehensive Compendium of the Commentary on the Classic of Poetry imperially commissioned, by 胡廣 (Hú Guǎng, 1370–1418) et al.
About the work
A 20-juǎn imperially commissioned compendium, one of the Wǔjīng dàquán commissioned by Yǒnglè in 1414 and submitted in 1415. The work was the official examination text for Shījīng in the Míng (and Qīng prior to the Sìkù period) and accordingly the most institutionally consequential single Míng Shī publication. The Sìkù editors are scathing about its scholarly value: “the book is essentially not worth preserving, but as the testing text of the previous Míng dynasty we record it for the historical record — like keeping the Hóngwǔ zhèng yùn in the Xiǎo xué class.”
The tíyào gives a brief but pointed history of the Shī-canon dispute leading up to the Dàquán: from the Northern Sòng before Ōuyáng Xiū and Sū Zhé there was no yìxué (heterodox learning) on the Shī; from Ōuyáng and the two Sū’s onward, distinct readings begin; from Zhèng Qiáo and Zhōu Fú onward, partisan dispute proper begins; from the ShàoxīngShàoxī era (1131–1194) the two sides “wear swords on the left and right and laugh at each other ceaselessly”; by the late Sòng the ancient meaning was banished and the new learning installed; under the Yuán the Shī commentary becomes nothing but Jí zhuàn sub-commentary; from Yányòu (1314) the examination format made this official; the Míng inherited the same.
The Sìkù editors then expose the Dàquán’s editorial fraud: although nominally an imperial compilation, the work is in substance Liú Jǐn’s Shī zhuàn tōngshì (KR1c0028) lightly revised. By collation against extant Liú Jǐn manuscripts, the editors confirm that “of the most prolix and meandering items only a few lines are deleted; the rest is preserved verbatim.” The only systematic alteration: every “Liú àn ⋯⋯” (Mr. Liú comments) has been changed to “Liúshì yuē ⋯⋯” (Mr. Liú says). Liú Jǐn had distributed the Xiǎo xù under each ode; the Dàquán restores Zhū Xī’s combining-into-one-block format. That is the entire editorial intervention.
The Sìkù editors note that Gù Yánwǔ’s Rì zhī lù and Zhū Yízūn’s Jīngyì kǎo both expose the work’s yīnxí (mere copying); Chén Qǐyuán’s Máoshī jīgǔ biān attacks Hú Guǎng for his over-reliance on Liú Jǐn but does not realize that the Dàquán itself is just a copy of Liú Jǐn — Chén “did not pursue the source.”
Tiyao
[Translated above as About the work — surveying the Sòng Shī-dispute history, exposing the Dàquán’s status as a barely-altered copy of Liú Jǐn’s Tōngshì, citing Gù Yánwǔ and Zhū Yízūn on the yīnxí, noting Chén Qǐyuán’s misdirected attack, and explaining the Sìkù editors’ decision to preserve the work as historical record of the Míng examination institution.]
Abstract
The Shī zhuàn dàquán is the official Míng examination commentary on the Classic of Poetry, in force from its 1415 submission to the late seventeenth century, and the principal vehicle through which the Yuán Zhū-Xī-school Shī commentary became the hegemonic reading in late-imperial China. The Sìkù editors’ demonstration that it is essentially Liú Jǐn’s Tōngshì (KR1c0028) under another name — combined with Gù Yánwǔ’s and Zhū Yízūn’s earlier exposures — is one of the most damaging Sìkù critiques of any Míng-era imperial compendium. The editors’ decision to preserve the work as a documentary record of the Míng examination institution (rather than as a scholarly contribution) is consistent with the Sìkù’s broader policy on the Yǒnglè compendia. Composition is precisely datable to 1414–15 by the Yǒnglè edict.
Translations and research
No translation. The work and its scholarly fraud are central to the standard accounts of late-imperial jīngxué — see Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Harvard, 1984), pp. 55–63 (on the Wǔjīng dàquán generally); Hé Hǎiyàn, Qīng-rén Shīxué yǔ Sòng-rén Shīxué. On the Wǔjīng dàquán compilation as an institutional event, see Bao Lǐlì, Yuán-Míng Shī xué shǐ guò dù lùn (Wén jīn, 2018).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ final note — that the work is preserved on the same principle as the Hóngwǔ zhèng yùn (the early-Míng official rhyme book whose linguistic doctrine the Sìkù editors regarded as fundamentally wrong) — captures the editors’ attitude with unusual clarity: scholarly worthlessness need not entail bibliographic deletion when the institutional record requires preservation.