Bìyún jí 碧雲集
The Azure-Cloud Collection by 李中 (撰)
About the work
The Sìbù cóngkān SBCK reprint of Lǐ Zhōng’s 李中 李中 (fl. Bǎodà 943–957 to Kāibǎo 968–976; Nán Táng poet) verse collection in 3 juǎn. Lǐ Zhōng’s career: under the Nán Táng he served as Xīngàn xiànlìng (sub-prefect of Xīngàn, modern Jiāngxī) — the post-title at the head of the present text. The collection’s name Bìyún alludes to the Daoist-immortal-cloud imagery characteristic of Lǐ’s verse.
The Sìkù did not include this collection in WYG; the SBCK is the principal modern access. The text opens with Chūn rì zuò and proceeds through Lǐ’s Hánjiāng mùbó, Wèi fūrén tán, and other characteristic landscape and Daoist-themed pieces.
Prefaces
The base text opens directly with juǎn 1 (no separate preface in the surviving SBCK copy). The header inscription gives Lǐ Zhōng’s titles: “Dēngshì láng / Shǒu Xīngàn xiànlìng / Zhī zhènshì / Cì fēiyú dài” — a typical Nán Táng / Wǔdài low-prefectural appointment plus fēi yúdài (red fish-bag) honor.
Abstract
Lǐ Zhōng is one of the relatively few Nán Táng literary voices preserved with an intact biéjí. The Bìyún jí is thematically dominated by landscape lyric in the Wǎn Táng descendant style: brief, image-pivoted juéjù and 5-character regulated verse rather than long gē or fù; Daoist-immortal allusions; and personal correspondence with contemporary literati and Daoist priests (the Fǎng Dòngshén gōng Shào dàozhě bù yù, etc.). His voice is a useful window onto post-Táng literary life in Jiāngnán under the Nán Táng (937–975), the literary court that preserved the Tang lyric tradition through the Wǔdài and transmitted it to the early Northern Sòng.
CBDB has no matching entry. Standard reference works place his career under Yuánzōng (Lǐ Jǐng) and Hòuzhǔ (Lǐ Yù) of Nán Táng, with surviving verse activity into the early Sòng Kāibǎo (968–976).
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- 张兴武 Zhāng Xīng-wǔ. 2000. Wǔ-dài shī shǐ 五代詩史. Treats Lǐ Zhōng in the Nán-Táng literary context.
Other points of interest
The persistence of late-Táng lyric in the Nán Táng court — Lǐ Zhōng, Lǐ Jiànxūn (= KR4c0114), and the great cí-poet Lǐ Yù — is a major chapter in the Wǔdài / Northern-Sòng transmission of Tang aesthetic forms. The Sìkù preference for the WYG-included Tang authors over Nán Táng survivors like Lǐ Zhōng meant the SBCK preservation became disproportionately important for the Mín-Sòng literary record.