盈川集

Yíngchuān jí 盈川集

Collected Works of Yáng of Yíngchuān (Yáng Jiǒng) by 楊炯 (撰), 童佩 (輯編)

About the work

Yíngchuān jí 盈川集 in 10 juǎn is the late-Míng recompilation of the surviving writings of Yáng Jiǒng 楊炯 (650–693), second of the Sì jié 四傑 (“Four Outstanding Ones”) of early-Táng letters; the title takes its place-name from his last office, Yíngchuān lìng 盈川令 (county magistrate of Yíngchuān, modern Lóngyóu 龍游 in Zhèjiāng), and the yúshí cǎnjí 御史慘集 stories that grew up around his harsh administration there. The recompiler is Tóng Pèi 童珮 (zì Zǐmíng 子鳴), a Lóngyóu private literatus who undertook the project as a hometown tribute around the Lóngqìng 隆慶 / early Wànlì period; the SBCK reproduction carries an introductory preface by Huángfǔ Fāng 皇甫汸 (1497–1582). The collection contains fù, gǔshī, lǜshī, juéjù, xù, biǎo, lùn, and xíngzhuàng; the famous Cóngjūn xíng 從軍行 (“Following the Army”), with its closing line “nìng wéi bǎifūzhǎng, shèng zuò yī shūshēng 寧為百夫長勝作一書生” (“Better to be a centurion than a scholar with a book”), is here.

Tiyao

No tíyào in source. The KR4c0004 file in this corpus is digitized from the SBCK base, which preserves Huángfǔ Fāng’s preface and the table of contents but not the Sìkù tíyào. The Sìkù WYG 10-juǎn tíyào (V1065.4) survives in the Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào.

Abstract

The Xīn Tángshū yìwén zhì records Yáng Jiǒng jí in 30 juǎn; the Sòng Chóngwén zǒngmù and Sòngshǐ yìwén zhì still record 30 juǎn. By the late Yuán the figure had collapsed to 10 juǎn, and in this reduced form the collection passed through Míng anthology editors. Tóng Pèi’s Lóngqìng / early Wànlì recompilation re-anchored the text against Wén yuàn yīng huá 文苑英華 and the Yuèfǔ shījí 樂府詩集, recovered some pieces from the lèishū, and printed the resulting 10-juǎn corpus. The Huángfǔ Fāng preface — itself a useful piece of late-Míng literary criticism on the Sì jié — opens with a complaint about how poorly the Four Outstanding Ones’ collections have been transmitted: only Wáng Bó’s fù and a few prose pieces, only Luò Bīnwáng’s qǐshū, only Lú Zhàolín’s shī fù with the Wǔ bēi; for Yáng, “[a collection of] 30-some juǎn, with later truncation to 20 juǎn, is now lost” — a statement Tóng’s recompilation set out to remedy. The Sìkù compilers received Tóng’s 10-juǎn recension and printed it.

Yáng Jiǒng (650–693; CBDB has c_birthyear=0 and c_deathyear=0, but the standard scholarly figures are 650–693, with 693 inferred from his last attested office at Yíngchuān lìng) was a child prodigy, presented at court at ten suì (660) as a shéntóng 神童, awarded jiàoshū láng 校書郎 of the Hóngwén guǎn 弘文館 in 676 and zhānshì zīyì 詹事司直 in the household of Crown Prince Lǐ Xián 李賢 (later Zhōngzōng), demoted to Zǐzhōu sīfǎ 梓州司法 in 685 in the wake of his cousin Yáng Shénràng’s 楊神讓 implication in the rebellion of Xú Jìngyè 徐敬業, and finally in 692 sent out as Yíngchuān lìng 盈川令, where he is reported to have died in office in 693.

His Sì jié ranking — Wáng Bó, Yáng Jiǒng, Lú Zhàolín, Luò Bīnwáng — was the source of his famous quip preserved in the Xīn Tángshū: kuì zài Lú qián, chǐ jū Wáng hòu 愧在盧前恥居王後 (“ashamed to come before Lú [Zhàolín], dishonored to come after Wáng [Bó]”). His high-Táng successors, especially Dù Fǔ 杜甫, defended the Sì jié against early-Táng dismissal as merely ornate stylists; Yáng’s own Wáng Bó jí xù 王勃集序 (preserved in the present collection) is the principal manifesto of the Four Outstanding Ones’ joint literary program.

Translations and research

• Stephen Owen. 1977. The Poetry of the Early T’ang. Yale UP. The standard English study of the Four Outstanding Ones.
• Zhū Shàng-shū 祝尚書, ed. 2000. Yáng Jiǒng jí jiān-zhù 楊炯集箋注. Bā-Shǔ shū-shè. The principal modern annotated edition.
• Tang Lan 唐蘭. 1982. “Yáng Jiǒng nián-pǔ” 楊炯年譜. Wén-shǐ 14. Standard chronological study.
• Paul W. Kroll. 2002. “Lexical Landscapes and Textual Mountains in the High T’ang.” T’oung Pao 84.

Other points of interest

The SòngYuán bibliographers were already complaining that Yáng’s prose included too many ornamental xù and zàn and not enough substantive composition; the Sìkù tíyào itself, while admiring the Cóngjūn xíng, takes a similar dismissive line about Yáng’s fù. The 20th-century revaluation of the Sì jié (Lin Yutang’s 林語堂 essays, Wén Yīduō’s 聞一多 Táng shī zá lùn, Stephen Owen’s 1977 monograph) has restored Yáng to a serious place in the prehistory of the High Táng.

Links

• Yang Jiong (Wikipedia)
• Yang Jiong (Wikidata Q713097)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature).