Wén shì 文釋
An Explication of Letters by 庾闡 (Yǔ Chǎn, c. 286–339, 晉)
About the work
A short Eastern Jìn 東晉 zǐbù essay on letters and learning by Yǔ Chǎn 庾闡 — the companion to his KR3a0133 Lì xué 厲學. Reconstructed from quotations in 《史記·蘇秦列傳》《索隱》, Lǐ Shàn’s 《文選》 commentary on Lù Jī’s 《猛虎行》 and Mǎ Róng’s 《長笛賦》, 《管子》 sub-commentary, and 《爾雅·釋文》. Not in the Sìkù quánshū; sourced from CHANT (CH2a1484).
Abstract
The Wén shì is a brief literary-philosophical essay on the nature and function of wén 文 — letters, civilising patterns, written composition. The fragments preserve aphoristic observations on the relation of wén to zhì 質 (substance) and on the moral grounding of literary composition, in the manner of Lù Jī’s 陸機 Wén fù 文賦 (the slightly earlier and considerably more famous Western Jìn essay on literary creation) but considerably terser. The composition window is bracketed by Yǔ Chǎn’s life. The received recension is a 19th-century jíyì; background on Yǔ Chǎn is given on 庾闡 and KR3a0133.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located on the Wén shì specifically. For the wider Six Dynasties poetics in which the work participates, see Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Harvard, 1992), which translates and discusses Lù Jī’s Wén fù. Standard fragment-compilation: 嚴可均 Quán Jìn wén 全晉文 j. 38.
Links
- Jìn shū 晉書 j. 92 (庾闡傳).