Ruǎn Jí jí 阮籍集
Collected Works of Ruan Ji (Reconstructed) by 阮籍 (撰)
About the work
A reconstructed collection (jíyìběn 輯佚本) of the literary writings of Ruǎn Jí 阮籍 (210–263 CE), the preeminent poet of the Zhúlín qīxián 竹林七賢 (Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove). Organized in four juǎn, the collection opens with 〈詠懷詩三首〉 (Three Poems of My Feelings), followed by the full set of 〈詠懷八十二首〉 (Eighty-Two Poems of My Feelings, beginning with the famous “夜中不能寐，起坐彈鳴琴” — “At midnight, unable to sleep, I rise and pluck the singing zither”). The juǎn also contains fù and prose works. Compiled by Zhāng Pǔ 張溥 for his Hàn Wèi Liùcháo bǎisān jiā jí 漢魏六朝百三家集.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This text is an extra-catalog reconstruction not included in the Sìkù quánshū 四庫全書.
Abstract
Ruǎn Jí 阮籍 (210–263 CE; zì Sìzōng 嗣宗; CBDB id 29615, dates confirmed from Lìdài rénwù niánlì tōngpǔ) was a native of Chénliú 陳留 (modern Henan), the son of the poet Ruǎn Yù 阮瑀 (?–212 CE), himself one of the Seven Masters of Jiàn’ān. Ruan Ji served as an official under the Wèi and, reluctantly, under the Sīmǎ 司馬 regents who increasingly controlled the dynasty; his persistent political ambiguity — refusing clearly to oppose or endorse the Sīmǎ coup that led to the founding of the Jìn dynasty — is reflected in the deliberately obscure allusiveness of his verse. His biography is in Jìn shū 晉書 (juǎn 49). See 阮籍 for full biography.
Ruan Ji’s 82 〈詠懷詩〉 (Poems Expressing My Feelings) are among the greatest achievements in Chinese lyric poetry. They are deliberately oblique — using myth, allegory, and tonal imagery to express anxiety, alienation, and frustrated idealism — and their precise referents have been debated since antiquity. Zhōng Róng 鍾嶸 in the Shī pǐn 詩品 placed him in the upper grade and hailed the Yǒnghuái poems as founding the tradition of five-character verse in the Wèi-Jìn period. He was also the author of the 〈大人先生傳〉 (Biography of the Great Man), a prose piece in the Zhuāngzǐ tradition celebrating radical non-conformism. His collected works are recorded in the Suíshū Jīngjí zhì in thirteen juǎn (lost). Zhāng Pǔ’s reconstruction assembles surviving texts from Wén xuǎn and other sources. The standard reconstruction of his poetry is in Lù Qīnlì 逯欽立’s Xiān-Qín Hàn Wèi Jìn Nánběicháo shī 先秦漢魏晉南北朝詩 (Zhōnghuá, 1983). His father Ruǎn Yù 阮瑀 also has a jíyìběn in the corpus (see future entry).
Translations and research
- Holzman, Donald. Poetry and Politics: The Life and Works of Juan Chi, A.D. 210–263. Cambridge University Press, 1976. The standard monograph in English on Ruan Ji.
- Knechtges, David R., and Taiping Chang, eds. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide. Leiden: Brill, 2010–2014. Entry on Ruan Ji.
- Lù Qīnlì 逯欽立, ed. Xiān-Qín Hàn Wèi Jìn Nánběicháo shī 先秦漢魏晉南北朝詩. 3 vols. Zhōnghuá, 1983.
Links
- Wikipedia: Ruan Ji