Shīyǒu tánjì 師友談記
by 李廌 (Lǐ Zhì, zì Fāngshū 方叔, 1059–1109, 華州)
About the work
A one-juan record of conversations Lǐ Zhì held with Sū Shì 蘇軾, Fàn Zǔyǔ 范祖禹, Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅, Qín Guān 秦觀, Cháo Yuèzhī 晁說之 (better, Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之), and Zhāng Lěi 張耒 — the senior figures of the Yuányòu 元祐 literary milieu in which Lǐ moved as one of the Sūmén liù jūnzǐ 蘇門六君子 (“Six Gentlemen of the Sū School”). The title — “Notes on conversations with teachers and friends” — captures the social circumstance: not the gleanings of a junior auditor but the records of a participant.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Shīyǒu tánjì in one juan was composed by Lǐ Zhì of the Sòng. Lǐ has the Déyúzhāi huàpǐn 德隅齋畫品 [also] catalogued. The book records conversations with Sū Shì, Fàn Zǔyǔ, Huáng Tíngjiān, Qín Guān, Cháo Shuōzhī (= Cháo Bǔzhī), and Zhāng Lěi — hence the title. All the men were luminaries of the Yuányòu era, and Lǐ’s own learning and writing were equal to keeping company with them. He could understand what they were saying. What is recorded consists chiefly of memorable sayings and serious arguments — not the trivia of a xiǎo shuō. Several of the sections recording Qín Guān’s discussion of fù 賦 are exhaustive in craft detail, but conclude that examination fù are not worth taking seriously — to record this is to refuse to flatter what one favours. The book refers to Zhézōng 哲宗 as “the present sovereign,” so was composed in the middle to late Yuányòu period; the closing entries record Sū Shì as Vice Director of the Ministry of War (兵部尚書) and serving as commander at Dìngzhōu 定州. Sū did not stay long at Dìngzhōu before being banished south, so the book’s completion must fall after the Yuányòu group had been struck down — knowing whose company is bound by intellectual sympathy and not by power. Furthermore, even as a candidate languishing in the examination halls under the dominant Xīn jīngyì 新經義 reading, he might at any moment have curried favour and gained office; yet he records nothing but rebuffs and mockeries, with no flattery — a man content with what he was unwilling to do, modestly upright. A book of just a few sheets, yet still circulating alone under heaven — surely no accident.
Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].
General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Lǐ Zhì (1059–1109; zì Fāngshū, hào Jǐnán xiānsheng 濟南先生 / Tàihuá yìmín 太華逸民; studio name Déyúzhāi 德隅齋) was a native of Huázhōu 華州 (modern Huáxiàn, Shǎnxī). He is one of the Sūmén liù jūnzǐ, the others being Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅, Qín Guān 秦觀, Zhāng Lěi 張耒, Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之, and Chén Shīdào 陳師道. His biography is Sòng shǐ 宋史 j. 444 (列傳 203, 文苑六).
Lǐ failed the examinations in spectacular fashion. In Yuányòu 3 (1088) Sū Shì presided over the Ministry of Rites examination intending to pass Lǐ; under anonymous marking (húmíng 糊名), Sū misidentified another candidate’s papers as Lǐ’s, elevating that candidate to the top of the list, and Lǐ failed. Lǚ Dàfáng 呂大防 lamented “the examiners have lost this rare talent” (有司試藝，乃失此奇才); Sū wrote a self-reproaching poem and (with Fàn Zǔyǔ) attempted to recommend Lǐ to the throne directly, only for the post-Yuányòu purges to intervene. Lǐ failed again in 1091, abandoned official ambition, settled in Chángshè 長社 in the Yǐngzhōu 潁州 region, and died there at 51.
The book’s interest is several-fold. First, it preserves first-hand record of Yuányòu-era literary conversation, including substantial passages on Qín Guān’s poetics of fù — among the most important Northern Sòng witnesses to Qín’s craft. Second, the editorial restraint Lǐ exercises (recording Qín’s dismissal of examination-grade fù without softening, recording Sū as 兵部尚書 and Dìngzhōu commander although by the time of writing Sū had already been banished) gives a clear chronological window: composition mid-Yuányòu (1086–1094) for the body of the text, with the closing entries postdating Sū’s appointments to those offices in late 1093 and the Yuányòu purges of 1094 onward. Lǐ’s death in 1109 is the latest plausible terminus.
The work is anchored bibliographically in the SKQS as a záshuō 雜說 of the Zájiā 雜家 class but its real place in modern scholarship is as a primary source for Northern Sòng literary history.
Translations and research
No complete English translation exists; excerpts (notably the Qín Guān fù passages) are paraphrased or partly translated within Western and Chinese studies of Sòng literary criticism, but no standalone rendering of Shīyǒu tánjì in English has been published.
The standard modern scholarly edition is:
- Lǐ Zhì 李廌 (孔凡禮 Kǒng Fánlǐ, ed.), Shīyǒu tánjì · Qū Wěi jiùwén · Xītáng jí qíjiù xùwén 師友談記 · 曲洧舊聞 · 西塘集耆舊續聞, Zhōnghuá Shūjú 中華書局 (Tángsòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān 唐宋史料筆記叢刊), 2002, 406 pp. — base text the Xuéjīn tǎoyuán 學津討原, collated against the Sòng Bǎichuān xuéhǎi 百川學海 and the Sìkù version, supplemented from Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà, Xù Zīzhì tōngjiàn chángbiān, Huángcháo shìxué guīfàn, and the 28 entries in Shuōfú 說郛 j. 90. This is the standard scholarly citation.
The work is a frequently-cited primary source in Chinese-language treatments of the Sūmén circle and of Qín Guān’s poetics (e.g. Xú Péijūn 徐培均’s work on Qín), but no book-length monograph is devoted specifically to it.
Other points of interest
The Qín Guān fù passages are substantial enough to be treated as a self-standing miniature poetics essay, and are routinely excerpted in modern anthologies of Sòng cílùn 詞論 and fùlùn 賦論. Lǐ’s failure to flatter the Xīn jīngyì school under examination conditions — directly recorded by him — is also one of the cleaner contemporary witnesses to the Yuányòu / Shàoshèng 紹聖 partisan break and its consequences for individual intellectual lives.