玄晏春秋

Xuányàn chūnqiū 玄晏春秋

Spring and Autumn of Xuányàn (Annals of the Dark-Recluse) by 皇甫謐 (撰)

About the work

A Wèi–Jìn first-person memoir-style miscellany by the celebrated Gāoshì 高士 (“recluse-gentleman”) and yīshū 醫書 (“physician’s-book”) author Huángfǔ Mì 皇甫謐 (皇甫謐, 215–282). The title Xuányàn (literally “dark-recluse” or “deep-tranquility”) is one of Huángfǔ Mì’s own self-styled epithets, and the Xuányàn chūnqiū is essentially an annal of his own scholarly conversations, dietary investigations, ritual disputations, and reflections on antiquity. Together with his Gāoshì zhuàn 高士傳 (KR3i0017 or similar), the Liènǚ zhuàn 列女傳 supplement, and the medical-acupuncture classic Zhēnjiǔ jiǎyǐ jīng 針灸甲乙經, the Xuányàn chūnqiū is a key product of his scholarly retirement.

Tiyao

Abstract

The Suí shū jīngjí zhì 隋書經籍志 lists “Xuányàn chūnqiū 3 juàn, by Huángfǔ Mì of the Jìn” under zǐbù xiǎoshuō. Both Táng catalogs preserve the entry. The work was lost as a transmitted unitary text by no later than the Sòng. Surviving fragments are preserved chiefly in Lǐ Shàn’s 李善 Wénxuǎn 文選 commentary, in the Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔, in the Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, in the Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 and Tàipíng guǎngjì 太平廣記, and in scattered TángSòng biji. Lǔ Xùn collects the surviving fragments in Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沉.

The dating bracket adopted here (240–282) is the standard window for Huángfǔ Mì’s mature literary career: he is recorded in the Jìn shū 51 as having turned to scholarship after a long youth of frivolous behaviour (around age 25, c. 240), and as having died in 282. The Xuányàn chūnqiū, written in first person and recording named scholarly conversations, was clearly composed during his post-retirement decades in Chángān 長安. The work shows him conversing with WèiJìn worthies — including Wèi Lún 衛倫 (Provincial Recommended Talent travelling to the capital for the imperial summons), the recluses of the Chángān region, and visiting officials — on topics ranging from cuisine (the famous Liú Zǐyáng 劉子揚 anecdote on tasting salt-flavour in a piece of cake; the comparison to Master Shī Kuàng 師曠 and to Yì Yá 易牙) to historical-ritual disputes.

The work is one of the principal early documents of the Chinese first-person scholarly-memoir tradition; alongside Tāo Qián’s 陶潛 (slightly later) Wǔliǔ xiānshēng zhuàn 五柳先生傳, it stands at the head of the Chinese tradition of the zìzhuàn / zhìshū — the self-account in prose. The Xuányàn chūnqiū fragments preserve some of the earliest cultivated Chinese first-person prose outside the ritual-historiographic zhì-genre.

Translations and research

• Lǔ Xùn 魯迅. Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén 古小說鉤沉 (1909–11; publ. 1938). Principal reconstruction.
• Wáng Guó-liáng 王國良. Wèi-Jìn nán-běi-cháo zhì-guài xiǎoshuō yán-jiū 魏晉南北朝志怪小說研究.
• Lǐ Jiàn-guó 李劍國. Táng-qián zhì-guài xiǎoshuō shǐ 唐前志怪小說史 (rev. 2005).
• Knechtges, David R., and Chang, Taiping, eds. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide (Brill, 2010), entry on Huáng-fǔ Mì.
• Sailey, Jay. The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: A Study of the Philosopher Ko Hung (CMC, 1978), with comparative discussion of the Wèi-Jìn recluse-memoirist tradition.
• Jìn shū 晉書 51, biography of Huáng-fǔ Mì (standard source).

Other points of interest

The cuisine-and-taste anecdotes preserved in the Xuányàn chūnqiū fragments — particularly the Liú Zǐyáng eat-cake-and-know-salt-was-applied-while-the-grain-was-growing anecdote and the Wèi Lún recognising wheat-by-its-apricot-plum-pear-flavour anecdote — are among the earliest surviving Chinese narratives of supersensitive taste-and-smell. They are direct ancestors of the Six-Dynasties qīngtán tradition of palate-connoisseurship that flowers in the Shìshuō xīnyǔ. The work is also of secondary importance for the history of Chinese dietetics, occupying a transitional position between Hàn pharmacology and the Liù Cháo and Táng dietary canon.

Links

• Lǔ Xùn, Gǔ xiǎoshuō gōuchén.
• Jìn shū 51.
• https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/皇甫謐