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唐新語

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Text ID
KR3l0004
Date
807–807
Dynasty
唐

Táng xīnyǔ 唐新語

New Account of the Tang by 劉肅 (撰)

About the work

A thirteen-juàn anecdotal history of the Táng from the Wǔdé foundation (618) to the end of Dàlì (779), composed in 807 (Yuánhé 丁亥) by the Jiāngzhōu Xúnyáng district recorder 劉肕 Liú Sù, expressly modelled on Xún Shuǎng’s 荀爽 Hànyǔ 漢語 and arranged into thirty categorical sections — Kuāng zàn 匡贊 (Counsel and Aid), Gāng zhèng 剛正 (Firm Rectitude), Wén zhāng 文章 (Letters), and so on — followed by a closing essay (zǒnglùn 總論). Each section gathers anecdotes (yìwén jiùshì 軼文舊事) chosen for didactic value (yǒubì quànjiè 有禆勸戒).

Tiyao

Your servants report: the Táng xīnyǔ in 13 juàn, by the Táng Liú Sù. The Táng shū Yìwén zhì records this work in 3 juàn, with the note “Yuánhé era, Jiāngdū district recorder (zhǔbù 主簿)”; the title-band of the present text reads instead “dēngshì láng, acting Jiāngzhōu Xúnyáng xiàn zhǔbù”; which of the two is correct is uncertain. The text covers from the foundation in Wǔdé to the end of Dàlì in 30 sections, all chosen from anecdote and lore with edificatory utility. There is an author’s preface at the head and a zǒnglùn (general discussion) appended at the close, citing Xún Shuǎng’s record of Hàn matters which he had collected “for the warning of generations” under the title Hànyǔ; he, Liú Sù, intends to follow Xún’s example for his own age. For this reason the Táng bibliographic treatise placed the book in the záshǐ 雜史 (miscellaneous histories) class. However its Xiéxuè 諧謔 section is overgrown and trivial, sullying the rest of the book, and as such it falls short of historiographical decorum; we have moved it down to the xiǎoshuō category, in conformity with its substance. The book’s original name is Xīn yǔ: the Táng bibliographic and later catalogs uniformly use this title. In the Míng, Féng Mèngzhēn 馮夢禎 and Yú Ānqī 俞安期 jointly printed the work alongside a forged “Xù Shìshuō” 續世說 of Lǐ Hòu 李垕 and changed the title arbitrarily to Táng shìshuō 唐世說; Shāng Wéijùn 商維濬 then printed it in the Bàihǎi 稗海 (collection of bàishǐ) and even inserted the two graphs shìshuō into Liú Sù’s own preface — a yet more flagrant forgery. The Bàihǎi edition additionally drops the closing zǒnglùn and the title-line of section 8 Zhèngnéng 政能, and is in other respects more erratic than the Féng and Yáo editions. We have collated the several editions, restored the work to its proper 30 sections plus zǒnglùn, and returned the title to Táng xīnyǔ, recovering its old form. Respectfully presented in the 9th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781].

Abstract

Liú Sù 劉肅 (fl. 806–820) was a minor Yuánhé-era literatus serving as district recorder; little else is known of him securely. His own preface dates the book to “the month of the yuánqiū sacrifice in Yuánhé 丁亥” — that is, the eleventh month of the second year of Yuánhé, lunar 807, with the title “dēngshì láng, Xúnyáng xiàn zhǔbù.” His express programmatic claim is to extend the xiǎoxué but seriously-intended Hànyǔ of Xún Shuǎng to the Táng dynasty. The work is thus a hinge piece between the záshǐ and xiǎoshuō categories: organised by moral-political category in imitation of pre-Hàn anecdote collections, but treating recent Táng material with sufficient earnestness that the Xīn Táng shū compilers occasionally drew on it.

The SòngYuán transmission is in 3 juàn (so the Táng shū and Sòng shǐ bibliographic treatises). The 13-juàn arrangement is a later structural redaction, probably Míng, that the Sìkù compilers preserved. The work survives in multiple editions of unequal value: Féng Mèngzhēn / Yú Ānqī, Yáo Rǔxún 姚汝循, and the corrupt Bàihǎi 稗海 print. The Sìkù recension is the standard. The post-Míng confusion of titles (Táng shìshuō) reflects the popularity of the Shìshuō tǐ genre in the late-Míng book market.

Translations and research

  • Dà Táng xīn-yǔ 大唐新語. Xǔ Dé-nán 許德楠 and Lǐ Dǐng-xiá 李鼎霞, coll. and annot. Zhōnghuá, 1984 (Táng-Sòng shǐ-liào bǐ-jì cóngkān). Standard modern edition.
  • Twitchett, Denis, in The Writing of Official History under the T’ang (CUP 1992), notes the Táng xīnyǔ among the unofficial sources used to supplement the late-Táng court diaries and shíjù zhù.
  • No complete European-language translation has been located.

Other points of interest

Liú Sù’s express invocation of Xún Shuǎng’s Hànyǔ — a lost late-Hàn anecdote-arranged-by-moral-category compilation — situates Táng xīnyǔ in the same lineage as KR3l0002 Shìshuō xīnyǔ, even though Liú Sù was at pains to distinguish his didactic intent from Shìshuō’s belletristic one. The Míng book-trade conflation of the two genres is therefore not entirely without textual justification.

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