Tíng gào 庭誥
Courtyard Admonitions by 顏延之 (Yán Yánzhī, 384–456, 宋)
About the work
A lost LiúSòng 劉宋 jiāxùn 家訓 (“family instructions”) composition by the great poet and courtier Yán Yánzhī 顏延之, the senior figure (with Xiè Língyùn 謝靈運) of the early LiúSòng Yuánjiā tǐ 元嘉體 literary style. Reconstructed from quotations in 《太平御覽》, 《藝文類聚》, 《詩‧周南‧關雎正義》 (Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Zhèngyì), and from many other Lúnyǔ, Yì and Lǐ sub-commentaries. Not in the Sìkù quánshū; sourced from CHANT (CH2a1391).
Abstract
The Tíng gào — “Admonitions from the Courtyard,” a title that consciously echoes the Lúnyǔ passage in which Confucius instructs his son Bóyú 伯魚 in the courtyard — is the most direct and most influential predecessor of Yán Zhītuī’s 顏之推 (531–c. 591) celebrated Yánshì jiāxùn 顏氏家訓 (the two Yáns are not closely related, but the genealogical-rhetorical lineage is explicit). It survives in only fragments, but the fragments preserve programmatic statements on the education of sons, the proper reading of the Shī and the Yì, the moral grounding of literary composition, and the conduct of office. Yán Yánzhī’s biography is in Sòng shū 宋書 j. 73 and Nán shǐ 南史 j. 34; he was a native of Línyí 臨沂, served at the courts of Liú Yù 劉裕 (Sòng Wǔdì 武帝) and Liú Yìfú 劉義符 (Shàodì 少帝), and is the addressee of numerous letters preserved in Wén xuǎn and the Hóng míng jí 弘明集. The composition window for the Tíng gào is plausibly his middle years, c. 420–456. The received recension is a Qing-era jíyì.
Translations and research
- Richard B. Mather, The Poet Shen Yüeh (441–513) and related Liú-Sòng literary studies cite the Tíng gào in passing.
- Tian Xiaofei, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (502–557) (Harvard, 2007) — frames the Tíng gào in the longer trajectory of Six Dynasties jiā-xùn literature.
- Standard fragment-compilation: 嚴可均 Quán Sòng wén 全宋文 j. 38.
Links
- Sòng shū 宋書 j. 73 (顏延之傳).
- Nán shǐ 南史 j. 34.