次山集

Cìshān jí 次山集

Collected Works of Cì-shān (Yuán Jié) by 元結 (撰)

About the work

Cìshān jí 次山集 in 12 juǎn — also widely transmitted as Yuán Cìshān jí 元次山集 — is the surviving collection of Yuán Jié 元結 (719–772; zì Cìshān 次山, also Mánláng 漫郎), the Dàizōng-period statesman-poet who is conventionally credited (alongside Xiāo Yǐngshì 蕭穎士 蕭穎士 and Lǐ Huá 李華 李華) with the Tiānbǎo / Dàlì literary turn back to the HànWèi archaic prose tradition — the fùgǔ 復古 program that prepared the way for Hán Yù 韓愈 韓愈 and the gǔwén 古文 movement of the YuánHé 元和 generation. The transmitted text is the Zhèngdé 正德 12 (1517) print by Shǐ Ruòshuǐ 史若水 (with a substantial preface by him preserved in the SBCK file), commissioned by the Wǔdìng hóu 武定侯 Guō Xūn 郭勳, LiǎngGuǎng zǒngróng 兩廣總戎.

Tiyao

No tíyào in source. The KR4c0027 file is the SBCK base, which preserves Shǐ Ruòshuǐ’s Zhèngdé 12 (1517) preface but no Sìkù tíyào. The Sìkù WYG 12-juǎn tíyào (V1071.6) survives in the Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào.

Abstract

The Tángshū yìwén zhì records Yuán Jié’s collection in 10 juǎn; the Sòng-period transmission is consistent at 10 juǎn. The transmitted YuánMíng Cìshān jí in 12 juǎn incorporates the additional Yuánzǐ 元子 prose tradition (Yuán Jié’s Lùn yì 論議 essays, often anthologized separately) and a small body of recovered material from Wén yuàn yīng huá. The Shǐ Ruòshuǐ 1517 print is a substantial editorial intervention — Shǐ’s preface is itself a piece of Míng literary criticism arguing for Yuán Jié as the only true Tang exemplar of unornamented zhì 質 (substance) over wén 文 (ornament). The Sìkù compilers received this Míng print and reprinted it.

Yuán Jié (719–772 per CBDB cbdbId 32889; the catalog meta gives 723–772, slightly displaced; CBDB followed here, with 719 as the standard reference figure) was a Hénán 河南 Lǔshān 魯山 native (modern Lǔshān xiàn in central Hénán). Jìnshì of Tiānbǎo 12 (753) at age 35 — a notably late success after multiple failures — distinguishing himself in the zhìcè (special-policy) examination. His career was made by the An Lùshān rebellion: as kāngshù 抗叙 (military secretary) to the Shānnán dōngdào jiédùshǐ Lái Tián 來瑱 in 759, and subsequently as Dàozhōu cìshǐ 道州刺史 (in modern Dàozhōu, Húnán) and Róngzhōu cìshǐ 容州刺史 (in modern Guǎngxī) in 763–766, he was credited with restoring civil order in the post-rebellion southwestern provinces. He retired ca. 768 to Cíyángshān 慈陽山, where his collected anecdotes and personal yǒnghuái prose gave the corpus its distinctive personal voice. He died in Dàlì 7 (772) in Chángān aged 54.

The collection contains substantial fù, yuèfǔ, gǔshī, and lǜshī, plus a much-anthologized body of prose: the Yǔ Húzǐ shū 與胡子書 (“Letter to Master Hú”), the Hóu yún shuō 喉雲說, the Mántuán 漫團 cí, and most importantly the Dàozhōu mín 道州民 (a verse memorial on the suffering of the local population during his magistracy, anthologized everywhere from Wén yuàn yīng huá to the modern Quán Táng shī). His Yuánzǐ 元子 prose-treatises — programmatically ironic, often archaizing in deliberate opposition to the Tiānbǎo court style — became the principal model for the Tiānbǎo / Dàlì fùgǔ generation. Hán Yù’s Yuán Cìshān mùbēi 元次山墓碑, written for Yuán’s son nearly a century after Yuán’s death, is the principal subsequent tribute and Hán’s explicit acknowledgment of his predecessor.

The famous Yáncì zhōu Lǐ Liángzhōu 嚴次州李涼州 “Mánzhōu xíng 漫州行” anecdote — Yuán Jié drinking with the Liángzhōu cìshǐ Lǐ Yǒng — and the Cǎo dù xíng 草堂行 are highlights of his yuèfǔ output.

Translations and research

• David L. McMullen. 1988. State and Scholars in T’ang China. CUP. Substantial discussion of Yuán Jié’s fù-gǔ prose and its Dài-zōng-court context.
• Sun Wang 孫望, ed. 1960. Yuán Cì-shān jí 元次山集. Zhōnghuá. The principal modern critical edition.
• Stephen Owen. 2006. The Late Tang. Harvard. Important context for the fù-gǔ tradition.
• Anthony DeBlasi. 2002. Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. SUNY. Standard English-language treatment of the Tiān-bǎo / Dà-lì fù-gǔ turn.

Other points of interest

The Dàozhōu mín 道州民 — a verse memorial to Dàizōng, in over 200 lines, on the post-rebellion suffering of the Dàozhōu population — is one of the most important Tang documents on the social cost of An-Shǐ rebellion outside the Dù Fǔ corpus, and a foundational text for the late-Tang xīn yuèfǔ 新樂府 (new yuèfǔ) tradition that Bái Jūyì 白居易 and Yuán Zhěn 元稹 would develop a generation later.

Links

• Yuan Jie (Wikipedia)
• Yuan Jie (Wikidata Q713126)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Tang literature); §28.7.3 (Tang fu-gǔ tradition).