Zhuīxī yóu jí 追昔遊集
Recollection of Past Travels Collection by 李紳 (撰)
About the work
Verse collection in 3 juǎn of Lǐ Shēn 李紳 李紳 (772–846, zì Gōngchuí 公垂), a Bózhōu 亳州 native, jìnshì of Yuánhé 1 (806), eventually zhōngshū shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì (chief minister) under Wǔzōng in the Huìchāng period. The collection’s 101 poems were composed before he reached the chief-ministership and constitute the principal verse output that survives. The original Kāichéng wùwǔ (838) self-preface — preserved in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì — is missing from the present WYG copy. Lǐ Shēn is best known to the general reader as the author of the schoolroom-classic Mǐn nóng 憫農 (“Pity the Peasant”) quatrains — though those poems are not in the present collection. With Lǐ Déyù 李德裕 (= KR4c0067) and Yuán Zhěn 元稹 (= KR4c0068), Lǐ Shēn was reckoned as one of the Sān jùn 三俊 (“three preeminent talents”) of the Yuánhé generation. Bái Jūyì 白居易’s line xián yín duǎnLǐ shī (“idly chanting Short-Lǐ’s poems” — Lǐ Shēn was nicknamed duǎnLǐ for his small stature) refers to him.
Tiyao
Zhuīxī yóu jí in 3 juǎn — by Lǐ Shēn of the Táng. Shēn, zì Gōngchuí, of Bózhōu; Yuánhé 1 jìnshì; under Wǔzōng served as zhōngshū shìláng tóng zhōngshū ménxià píngzhāngshì. Biography in Xīn Tángshū. The collection is all from before his ministership. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì records a Kāichéng wùwǔ (838) self-preface; the present text lacks it. 101 poems. The Xīn Tángshū biography reports anecdotes — Lǐ’s prayer at the Shéntān of Duānzhōu on demotion, the river suddenly rising; his tigers retreating at Shòuzhōu; his discipline of Hénán delinquents — all from this collection. Histories ought to record reliably, but Sòng Qí used the subject’s own self-report. Hard to take as confirmed. And Lǐ went to Duānzhōu in summer-autumn; his family’s boat reached him in the 10th month — by which time the rapids had subsided. So he wrote a prayer to the Mālóng shrine and the river rose — Lǐ’s poem and self-note say so. Sòng Qí read this as Lǐ’s “crossing-the-pass” (dùlǐng) episode — he read the collection without care. Later scholars value the Xīn shū over the Jiù shū on Sòng Qí’s reputation; not a balanced judgment.
Lǐ, with Lǐ Déyù 李德裕 and Yuán Zhěn 元稹, was called the Three Preeminent (sān jùn); Bái Jūyì’s “xián yín duǎnLǐ shī” line concerns him. The present collection’s tone is chánhuǎn (relaxed-easy), seemingly unable to compete with contemporaries. Yet calm and graceful, free from the Late-Táng petty-craft mannerism, his form ranks above the late-Táng kèhuà embroiderers.
Abstract
Lǐ Shēn (772–846) is the political pole of the Yuánhé literary triumvirate (with Lǐ Déyù and Yuán Zhěn): a major chief minister under Wǔzōng during the Huìchāng anti-Buddhist campaign of 842–845, and a leading member of the so-called NiúLǐ factional struggle on the Lǐ Déyù side. The 101-poem Zhuīxī yóu jí is autobiographical in form — each poem keyed to a specific past travel-stage — and is one of the earliest sustained personal-memoir verse projects in Chinese letters. CBDB id 92982 confirms 772–846. Lǐ Shēn’s most famous works — the two Mǐn nóng quatrains, taught universally in Chinese schools — are NOT in this collection but are preserved in Quán Táng shī and various anthologies. The transmission of Zhuīxī yóu jí is comparatively thin — the Yuánhé generation’s collections were unevenly preserved through the Wǔdài, and Lǐ’s collected works per se (his other prose, his 制誥 etc.) are now lost.
Translations and research
- 王旋伯 Wáng Xuán-bó. 1985. Lǐ Shēn shī zhù 李紳詩注. Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí.
- 卢燕新 Lú Yàn-xīn. 2007. Lǐ Shēn yánjiū 李紳研究. Bā-Shǔ shū-shè.
- Dudbridge, Glen. 2002. Lost Books of Medieval China. British Library. Treats the loss of Lǐ’s prose corpus.
Other points of interest
The Mǐn nóng paradox — that the most universally-known and morally weighty poems by Lǐ Shēn are NOT in his transmitted collection but circulated independently from anthologies — is a vivid example of how late-imperial canonical-Táng-poet identity diverged from the philological survival of any one writer’s complete corpus. The Sìkù compilers’ careful refutation of Sòng Qí’s reliance on Lǐ Shēn’s autobiographical claims (in the Xīn Tángshū biography) is also a small lesson in source criticism.