常建詩

Cháng Jiàn shī 常建詩

The Poems of Cháng Jiàn by 常建 (撰)

About the work

Cháng Jiàn shī 常建詩 in 3 juǎn is the surviving collection of the High-Táng shī poet Cháng Jiàn 常建 (jìnshì of Kāiyuán 15 = 727; floruit ca. 727–760), best known for the contemplative landscape Tí Pòshān sì hòu chányuàn 題破山寺後禪院 (“Inscribed at the Rear Meditation Hall of the Pòshān Temple”) with its iconic couplet qūjìng tōng yōuchù, chánfáng huāmù shēn 曲徑通幽處禪房花木深 (“a winding path leads to a hidden place; in the meditation cell flowers and trees grow deep”). The transmitted 3-juǎn form is the Míng Máo Jǐn 毛晉 Jígǔgé 汲古閣 print; the Tángshū yìwén zhì lists only 1 juǎn, and the Wénxiàn tōngkǎo (composed SòngYuán transition) still has 1 juǎn. The split into 3 juǎn is therefore YuánMíng editorial.

Tiyao

The Táng’s Cháng Jiàn — his zì is unknown, his native place untraceable. Per Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí, he was a jìnshì of Kāiyuán 15 (727), ending his career as Xūyí wèi 盱眙尉; the poets simply called him Cháng wèi 常尉 from his official rank. The Tángshū yìwén zhì records his shī in 1 juǎn; this version in 3 juǎn is the Máo Jǐn print of the Jígǔgé, and we cannot say who first divided it. The Tōngkǎo, written at the SòngYuán transition, still has 1 juǎn; the division is therefore YuánMíng work.

Yīn Fán’s 殷璠 Héyuè yīnglíng jí 河嶽英靈集 — among the most rigorous of Táng anthologies — recorded only 24 men of the SùDài (Sùzōng / Dàizōng, 756–779) period, with Cháng Jiàn placed at the head, and 234 poems total of which Cháng has 15. Yīn’s preface says: “*Liú Zhēn died as a wénxué; Zuǒ Sī ended as a jìshì; Bào Zhào perished as a gōngjūn; Cháng Jiàn likewise sank to a single wèi — I am deeply saddened.” Yīn cites his lines sōngjì lù wēiyuè, qīngguāng yóu wèi jūn 松際露微月清光猶為君 (“at the pine’s edge dew-moon: pure light still for the lord”) and shānguāng yuè niǎoxìng, tányǐng kōng rénxīn 山光悦鳥性潭影空人心 (“mountain-light pleases the bird’s nature; pool’s reflection empties the human heart”) with particular admiration; and singles out the Diào Wáng jiāngjūn mù 弔王將軍墓 as superior to Pān Yuè 潘岳 in xù bēiyuàn 敘悲怨 (the narration of sorrow).

Looking at the present collection: 57 poems in all. Of his correspondents, almost none can be identified by name. The single named major contemporary is Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡: one Sù qí yǐnjū 宿其隱居 piece, and one Zhāo yǔ Zhāng Fèn gòng yǐn 招與張僨共隱 piece — making his official career as much in retreat as on the page. Lǐ Bái was very close with Wáng Chānglíng, and Gāo Shì 高適 and Wáng Zhīhuàn 王之渙 even did a qítíng huàbì 旗亭畫壁 (“inscribing the inn-wall”) jaunt together with Chānglíng. What would Cháng Jiàn have lost by playing the patronage game? But he didn’t; his standing as a literary man is therefore the higher.

In addition to what Yīn Fán cites, Ōuyáng Xiū’s Tí Qīngzhōu shānzhāi 題青州山齋 also extols his “qūjìng tōng yōuchù, chánfáng huāmù shēn” couplet, saying he had tried for a long time to imitate it without success. (The Ōuyáng jí běn misreads the upper line as “zhújìng guò yōuchù 竹徑過幽處,” a momentary slip — Yáo Kuān’s 姚寬 Xīxī cóngyǔ 西溪叢語 has noted this; the present text follows the Cháng Jiàn collection.) The collection as a whole — six or seven of every ten pieces — stands beside Wáng Wéi and Mèng Hàorán’s shānshuǐ tradition, not just the few pieces Yīn and Ōuyáng singled out. Hóng Mài’s 洪邁 Wànshǒu juéjù 萬首絕句 separately cites a Wú gùgōng 吳故宮 piece by Cháng Jiàn that the present collection does not have, and which on stylistic grounds is unlikely to be his — Hóng’s compilation has many errors and cannot be relied on; the present edition does not insert it.

(Reverently collated and submitted in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 = 1781.)

Abstract

The tíyào is a substantial piece of Qīng kǎojù literary criticism in its own right, building a careful argument that Cháng Jiàn’s fǎ (poetry-craft) is the equal of Wáng Wéi’s 王維 and Mèng Hàorán’s 孟浩然 across the bulk of his work — not only in the few pieces (Pòshān sì, Diào Wáng jiāngjūn mù) that the standard anthologies privilege. This evaluation is now standard in modern Tang-poetry criticism (Pauline Yu, Stephen Owen).

Cháng Jiàn (CBDB has no fixed dates: cbdbId 48155 etc., none with confirmed lifedates) was jìnshì of Kāiyuán 15 (727); his only certain office was Xūyí wèi 盱眙尉 (county-level law-enforcement assistant of Xūyí in modern Jiāngsū). Beyond this we know nothing definitive: not his zì, not his jíguàn, not his death year. The poetry — shānshuǐ tiányuán in the manner of Wáng Wéi, with a deeper Buddhist coloring and a streak of frontier verse — locates him squarely in the contemplative-landscape side of the High Táng. His relative anonymity in the standard biographical sources is itself part of his literary persona — the man who chose obscurity as a virtue.

Translations and research

• Stephen Owen. 2013. The Poetry of the High Tang. Library of Chinese Humanities. Selection of Cháng Jiàn in English translation.
• Stephen Owen. 1981. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. Yale UP. Substantial discussion.
• Pauline Yu. 1980. The Poetry of Wang Wei. Indiana UP. Important parallel discussion in the shān-shuǐ context.
• Lin Wenyue 林文月, ed. 1992. Tang shi xuǎn-zhù: Cháng Jiàn juǎn 唐詩選注：常建卷.

Other points of interest

The “qūjìng tōng yōuchù, chánfáng huāmù shēn” couplet is one of the very few Tang couplets to enter the Chinese vernacular as a free-floating saying — like Chén Zǐáng’s niàn tiāndì zhī yōuyōu (see KR4c0008) or Wáng Wéi’s jiāng yáng tàiyīn shēng — and is regularly cited apart from its source.

Links

• Chang Jian (Wikipedia)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature).