Sīkōng Biǎoshèng shī jí 司空表聖詩集
The Verse Collection of Sī-kōng Biǎo-shèng [Sī-kōng Tú] by 司空圖 (撰)
About the work
The Sìbù cóngkān SBCK reprint of Sīkōng Tú’s 司空圖 司空圖 (837–908) verse collection in 5 juǎn, the companion of his prose collection KR4c0095. Together with the Yī míng jí (10 juǎn prose), the original Yī míng jí in 30 juǎn contained “shī 10 juǎn” per the Táng and Sòng bibliographies; the present 5 juǎn is the surviving verse-half. The text opens with a substantial biographical notice extracted from the Tángyīn tǒngqiān and the běnzhuàn, summarizing Sīkōng’s career: Xiántōng late period jìnshì; service in the XuānShè mù; Lǐbù lángzhōng; Xīzōng tour: appointed Zhī zhìgào and Zhōngshū shèrén; foreseeing the empire’s collapse, withdrew to Wángguān gǔ in Zhōngtiáo mountains; Lóngjì and Qiánníng periods summoned with old offices and Hù- / Bīng- 2 shìláng posts — refused; transferred to Luò and was decreed to court — feigned senility, begged to return; HòuLiáng summoned him as Lǐbù shàngshū — refused; on hearing Āizōng murdered, was unhappy for several days, then died (starved himself, per Xīn Tángshū).
Prefaces
The base text opens with the biographical headnotes, including: “Tú’s Wángguān gǔ had ancestral villas, springs-and-stones, woods-and-pavilions of considerable seclusion-charm; daily he wandered with míngsēng gāoshì (famous monks and high gentlemen), self-titled Zhīfēizǐ (Master Knowing-Wrong), Nàirǔ jūshì (Endurance-of-Disgrace Layman)… [his own foreseeing of the imperial doom; his refusal of post-Táng service].” This biographical headnote is integral to the SBCK edition’s framing of Sīkōng as moral exemplar.
Abstract
Sīkōng Tú’s verse — preserved here in 5 juǎn (down from the originally documented 10 juǎn) — is the poetic counterpart to the Yī míng jí prose collection. Sīkōng’s verse is, in retrospect, less central to his canonical reputation than his (disputed) authorship of the Èrshísì shīpǐn aesthetic taxonomy — but his verse itself, characterized by careful landscape composition and Buddhist-Daoist contemplative diction, was praised by Yuán Hàowèn and other YuánMíng critics as exemplary late-Táng practice. Sīkōng’s most famous individual lines come from the Sòng Cuīshēng and the Xiūxiū tíng poems; the latter (titled after a pavilion at his Wángguān gǔ retreat) became a stock literary place-name for the yǐnjū trope in SòngYuánMíng poetry.
For full biographical and bibliographic context, see KR4c0095 (the Yī míng jí prose collection). CBDB id 92445.
Translations and research
- See KR4c0095 for full Sī-kōng Tú references.
- Owen, Stephen. 1992. Readings in Chinese Literary Thought. Harvard.
- 祖保泉 Zǔ Bǎo-quán, 陶禮天 Táo Lǐ-tiān. 2002. Sī-kōng Tú jí jiào-zhù. Huáng-shān.
Other points of interest
The SBCK preservation of Sīkōng’s verse separately from the WYG prose-only collection is one of the bibliographic accidents that allowed the late-imperial reception of Sīkōng Tú as primarily a prose-and-criticism figure — his verse, important in the original 30-juǎn corpus, has historically been undervalued because the standard Sìkù edition included only the prose half.