Jiànjiè xiàng zàn 鑒戒象讚
Encomia on Pictures Offered as Mirror-Admonitions by 謝莊 (Xiè Zhuāng, 421–466, 宋)
About the work
A lost LiúSòng 劉宋 zǐbù compilation by the eminent court poet and minister Xiè Zhuāng 謝莊. Reconstructed from quotations in 《北史本傳》, 《周雅》 and other Táng leishu. Not in the Sìkù quánshū; sourced from CHANT (CH2a1488).
Abstract
The Jiànjiè xiàng zàn is a poetic-rhetorical compilation in the xiàng zàn 象讚 genre — encomia composed on a set of pictures intended for use as moral mirror-admonitions (jiànjiè 鑒戒). The work is in the broader Six-Dynasties tradition of pictorial-encomiastic prose-poetry, which goes back to Xiàhóu Zhàn’s 夏侯湛 Dōngfāng Shuò huà zàn (cf. KR3a0125) and culminates in the imperial zàn-collections of the Liáng court. Xiè Zhuāng’s biography is Sòng shū 宋書 j. 85 and Nán shǐ 南史 j. 20; the dates 421–466 are firmly attested by both. He is most famous today for his Yuè fù 月賦 (Rhapsody on the Moon, preserved in Wén xuǎn j. 13) and for his role as ceremonial composer at the courts of Sòng Wéndì 文帝 and Xiào Wǔdì 孝武帝. The Jiànjiè xiàng zàn surviving fragments are short and ceremonial; the work is otherwise lost. The composition window is bracketed by his life; the received recension is a 19th-century jíyì.
Translations and research
- David R. Knechtges (trans.), Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 3 (Princeton, 1996) — contains a full English translation of Xiè Zhuāng’s Yuè fù.
- Tian Xiaofei, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star — for the broader Liáng-Sòng literary context.
- Standard fragment-compilation: 嚴可均 Quán Sòng wén 全宋文 j. 35.
Links
- Sòng shū 宋書 j. 85 (謝莊傳).
- Nán shǐ 南史 j. 20 (謝弘微傳附謝莊傳).