Lǐ Yìshān shī jí 李義山詩集
The Verse Collection of Lǐ Yì-shān [Lǐ Shāng-yǐn] by 李商隱 (撰)
About the work
Verse collection in 3 juǎn of Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱 李商隱 (813–858, zì Yìshān 義山, hào Yùxī shēng 玉谿生), a Huáizhōu Hénèi 懷州河內 native, jìnshì of Kāichéng 2 (837), eventually jiǎnjiào Gōngbù lángzhōng. Lǐ is, with Dù Mù 杜牧 (= KR4c0072), the supreme WǎnTáng poet — the LǐDù late-Táng pairing, the master of the dense, allusive, polysemous late-style whose wútí 無題 (“untitled”) poems became the canonical exemplar of impenetrably-allusive Chinese verse. CBDB id 24412 confirms 813–858.
The Sòng compilers Yáng Yì and Liú Zǐyí (early-11th-c. members of the Xīkūn chóuchàng jí circle) took Lǐ as their model; the Xīkūn tǐ 西崑體 — Lǐ’s allusive denseness in early-Sòng court verse — became the dominant Sòng sub-style for two generations before the Yuányòu poets (Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān) reacted against it. Lǐ’s wútí poems remain controversial: the tíyào explicitly resists the universalizing allegorical interpretation (měirén xiāngcǎo — every fair-lady-and-fragrant-grass image as a hidden political allegory) and instead distinguishes among five categories of wútí: those with definite political jìtuō, those for amusement (xì wéi yàntǐ), those genuinely xiáxié (concerning sexual liaisons), those merely lacking original titles, and those mistakenly merged-in from other contexts.
The 3-juǎn form is the standard transmitted recension. The full Lǐ Shāngyǐn jí originally included substantial prose — separately catalogued at KR4c0076 (the Xú Shùgǔ + Xú Jiǒng Wénjí jiānzhù) and partially commented at KR4c0075 (the Zhū Hèlíng Shījí zhù).
Tiyao
Lǐ Yìshān shī jí in 3 juǎn — by Lǐ Shāngyǐn of the Táng. Shāngyǐn, zì Yìshān, of Huáizhōu Hénèi; Kāichéng 2 jìnshì; appointed Mìshū shěng jiàoshūláng, Hóngnóng wèi; Huìchāng 2: bóxué hóngcí bácuì; Wáng Màoyuán’s Héyáng deputy zhǎngshūjì; held various staff posts; ended as Dōngchuān jiédù pànguān, jiǎnjiào Gōngbù lángzhōng. Biography in Xīn Tángshū wényì zhuàn. Shāngyǐn’s verse rivals Wēn Tíngyún’s 溫庭筠 in fame; both rich-and-figured in diction. But Tíngyún has more qǐluó zhī fěn (silk-and-makeup) words; Shāngyǐn gǎnshí shāngshì (responds to the times, mourns events), still partly catches fēngrén spirit. So Cài Kuānfū’s Shīhuà records Wáng Ānshí saying: among Tang men learning Lǎo Dù and reaching his pale, only Shāngyǐn alone. From Sòng Yáng Yì, Liú Zǐyí etc., his current was followed; the Xīkūn chóuchàng jí came of it; verse-makers had a Xīkūn tǐ — incurring the actor’s xúnchě (plagiarism) jibe; Liú Pān recorded it in Zhōngshān shīhuà as a reproach.
The Yuányòu generation rose against it; throughout the Sòng dynasty no one took it as model. Hú Zǐ’s Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà extracted Mǎwéi shī and Hún hézhōng shī, calling them qiǎnjìn (shallow). Later the Jiāngxī school flowed into stiff-coarse cūbǐ; verse-makers returned to revere WēnLǐ. From the Shì Dàoyuán commentary onward, several families. Mostly straining to extract deep readings — believing every yī zì yī jù to be allegorical yùyán; especially the wútí poems pushed-and-strained.
Examining: Shāngyǐn’s Fǔbà poem has the line Chǔ yǔ hánqíng jiē yǒu tuō (“Chu’s rain, holding feeling, all has tuō [allegorical entrustment]”), borrowing husband-wife to figure ruler-minister — Shāngyǐn himself said so. But among wútí poems: some have definite jìtuō: Lái shì kōng yán qù juézōng type. Some are playful yàntǐ: Jìnzhī míng A-hóu type. Some genuinely concern xiáxié (intimate liaisons): Zuóyè xīngchén zuóyè fēng type. Some lost their original title: Wànlǐ fēngbō yīyè zhōu type. Some mistakenly merged with adjacent wútí: Yōurén bù juàn shǎng type. Their picking up the first two characters as title (e.g., Bì chéng, Jǐn sè) is also the same — to insist on universal měirén xiāngcǎo reading is to lose the běnzhǐ. Common readers gravitate to the most ornate pieces — which selections never include — taking the short and dropping the long, even worse.
Abstract
Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s verse collection is the principal WǎnTáng corpus alongside Dù Mù’s. Lǐ’s literary career was structurally entangled with the NiúLǐ factional struggle: he received early patronage from the Niú faction’s Lìnghú Chǔ 令狐楚 (his gǔwén teacher), then married the daughter of Wáng Màoyuán 王茂元 (a Lǐ Déyù faction adherent), permanently alienating Lìnghú Tāo 令狐綯 (Chǔ’s son, a leading Niú faction politician) — leading to repeated career setbacks and to the famously oblique mode of his later verse. The jǐnsè 錦瑟 (“Brocade-zither” — opening jǐnsè wúduān wǔshí xián) is the canonical wútí-style untitled poem; Lè yóu yuán 樂遊原 (xī yáng wú xiàn hǎo / zhǐ shì jìn huánghūn) the canonical late-life lyric. The tíyào’s 5-fold typology of wútí poems is one of the most useful pieces of late-imperial Lǐ Shāngyǐn criticism. CBDB id 24412.
Translations and research
- Liu, James J. Y. 1969. The Poetry of Li Shang-yin: Ninth-Century Baroque Chinese Poet. Chicago. The classic English-language monograph.
- Owen, Stephen. 2006. The Late Tang. Harvard. Substantial chapter.
- Yip, Wai-lim. 1976. Hiding the Universe: Poems by Wang Wei; also Lǐ Shāng-yǐn translations.
- 葉葱奇 Yè Cōng-qí. 1985. Lǐ Shāng-yǐn shī jí shū-zhù 李商隱詩集疏注. Rénmín wén-xué.
- 劉學鍇 Liú Xué-kǎi, 余恕誠 Yú Shù-chéng. 2002. Lǐ Shāng-yǐn shī jí jí-jiě 李商隱詩集集解. 4 vols. Zhōng-huá. The standard modern critical-collected commentary edition.
- See KR4c0075 for the Zhū Hè-líng 朱鶴齡 commentary; KR4c0076 for the Xú Shù-gǔ + Xú Jiǒng Wén-jí jiān-zhù.
Other points of interest
The post-Sòng commentary tradition on Lǐ Shāngyǐn — Shì Dàoyuán (late Míng) → Zhū Hèlíng 朱鶴齡 (Qīng, KR4c0075) → Chéng Mèngxīng → Yáo Péiqiān → Féng Hào → Liú Xuékǎi — is one of the deepest single-poet commentary genealogies in Chinese letters, comparable only to Dù Fǔ’s. Each commentator’s framing of the wútí problem (allegorical, biographical, erotic, accident) is itself a chapter in late-imperial poetic hermeneutics.