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孟浩然集

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Text ID
KR4c0025
Date
740–745
Dynasty
唐

Mèng Hàorán jí 孟浩然集

Collected Works of Mèng Hào-rán by 孟浩然 (撰)

About the work

Mèng Hàorán jí 孟浩然集 in 4 juǎn is the surviving collection of Mèng Hàorán 孟浩然 (689–740), the Xiāngyáng 襄陽 hermit-poet whose contemplative landscape verse is conventionally paired with Wáng Wéi 王維 王維 in the WángMèng 王孟 couplet — the two canonical figures of the High-Táng shānshuǐ tiányuán 山水田園 (landscape-and-farmstead) school. The collection’s editorial frame is a substantial preface (Mèng Hàorán jí xù 孟浩然集序) by Wáng Shìyuán 王士源 of Yíchéng 宜城, prepared ca. 745 (five years after Mèng’s death in 740) — the principal contemporary biographical source for the poet, and a remarkable piece of Tang-period literary biography in its own right.

Tiyao

No tíyào in source. The KR4c0025 file is the SBCK base, which preserves Wáng Shìyuán’s preface but no Sìkù tíyào. The Sìkù WYG 4-juǎn tíyào (V1071.4) survives in the Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào.

Abstract

The Sòng Tángshū yìwén zhì records Mèng Hàorán shī jí 孟浩然詩集 in 3 juǎn; the Sòngshǐ yìwén zhì in 3 juǎn; the transmitted text is 4 juǎn, with a marginal increase from supplementary recovery of pieces from Wén yuàn yīng huá. Wáng Shìyuán’s preface — the principal biographical document — is the source of nearly everything we know about Mèng:

  • a Xiāngyáng native, “gǔmào shūqīng, fēngshén sǎnlǎng 骨貌淑清風神散朗” (in person clear and composed; in spirit free and bright);
  • early lifelong refusal of office, with a brief and disastrous attempt at the examinations in Kāiyuán 16 (728) at age 40 (the famous self-mocking Suì mù guī Nánshān 歲暮歸南山, with its line “bù cái míng zhǔ qì 不才明主棄,” delivered at a private viewing for Xuánzōng, on Wáng Wéi’s introduction, is said to have prompted the emperor to reject him as too negative);
  • close friendships with Zhāng Jiǔlíng 張九齡 (then zǎixiàng), Wáng Wéi, and the Hànzhōng / Xiāngyáng circle (including Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡);
  • a brief late attempt to take office at the recommendation of the Shānnán cǎifǎngshǐ Hán Cháozōng 韓朝宗, foiled when Mèng — committed to a drinking party with friends — failed to attend the appointment ceremony with the zǎixiàng and was dismissed (the famous incident);
  • death in Kāiyuán 28 (740) at age 52, of a back-abscess (jízhěn fābèi 疾疹發背) aggravated by his refusal to abstain from forbidden seafood at a banquet welcoming Wáng Chānglíng on the latter’s Xiāngyáng visit.

CBDB confirms 689–740 (cbdbId 93956) consistent with the catalog meta and Wáng Shìyuán’s “age 52” figure.

The collection contains gǔshī, lǜshī, and juéjù; centerpieces include the Sù Jiàndé jiāng 宿建德江 (“Mooring at the Jiàndé River”), the Chūn xiǎo 春曉 (“Dawn in Spring,” one of the most-memorized of all Tang poems), and the Lín Dòngtíng 臨洞庭 (“Gazing on Dòngtíng Lake”). Lǐ Bái’s 李白 famous Sòng Mèng Hàorán zhī Guǎnglíng 送孟浩然之廣陵 (“Seeing Off Mèng Hàorán to Guǎnglíng”) and Wáng Wéi’s Kū Mèng Hàorán 哭孟浩然 are the two great contemporary tributes; Bái Jūyì 白居易 in the next generation also wrote on him repeatedly. The WángMèng pairing has been canonical from Yīn Fán 殷璠’s Héyuè yīnglíng jí (740s) onward.

Translations and research

  • Paul W. Kroll. 1981. Meng Hao-jan. Twayne. The standard English-language scholarly study.
  • David Hinton, tr. 2005. The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-jan. Archipelago.
  • William H. Nienhauser, tr. 1971. The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature — Meng Haojan article.
  • Tóng Pèi-jī 佟培基, ed. 2000. Mèng Hào-rán shī jí jiān-zhù 孟浩然詩集箋注. Shànghǎi gǔjí. Modern annotated edition.
  • Stephen Owen. 1981. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. Yale UP. Substantial discussion in the Wáng-Mèng context.
  • Pauline Yu. 1980. The Poetry of Wang Wei. Indiana UP. Important parallel discussion of Mèng’s place in the shān-shuǐ tián-yuán school.

Other points of interest

The Wáng Shìyuán preface is one of the few Tang-period prefaces to a literary collection that gives us substantive biographical detail (in this respect comparable only to Lú Cángyòng’s 盧藏用 preface to Chén Zǐáng 陳子昂’s collection at KR4c0008); its account of Mèng’s death — refusing to abstain from a forbidden seafood dish at a drinking party in honor of Wáng Chānglíng — is one of the canonical death-anecdotes of the High-Táng generation. Wáng Shìyuán himself was a Daoist hermit-traveler; his preface adds further interest as a piece of yǐnzhě 隱者-style biography.

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