Táng yīng gēshī 唐英歌詩
The Tang-Hero Poetry Collection by 吳融 (撰)
About the work
The three-juǎn WYG poetry collection of Wú Róng 吳融 (zì Zǐhuá 子華, of Shānyīn 山陰 in Yuèzhōu; jìnshì of Lóngjì 1 = 889; rose to Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ and Hùbù shìláng zhī zhìgào 戶部侍郎知制誥 under Zhāozōng). The title Yīng gēshī — “Hero-Poems” — borrows from the conventional poetic register of late-Táng court verse; the collection comprises the lǜshī, juéjù, and gǔfēng of Wú Róng arranged loosely by genre. Wú Róng was a fellow examination-graduate of Hán Wò 韓偓 and a co-academician with him; he is recognized in the Sìkù tiyao as one of the leading mid-tier Tiānyòu (904) generation poets — less remote than Sīkōng Tú 司空圖, less penetrating than Luó Yǐn 羅隱, less abundant than Pí Rìxiū 皮日休, less startling than Zhōu Pǔ 周朴, but second to none in workmanship of phrase and tone.
Tiyao
“We respectfully report: Tángyīng gēshī, three juǎn. Composed by Wú Róng of the Táng. Róng’s zì was Zǐhuá; he was of Shānyīn in Yuèzhōu; he passed jìnshì in Lóngjì 1 (889) and rose under Zhāozōng to Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ and Hùbù shìláng zhī zhìgào. His career is preserved in the Tángshū. Róng and Hán Wò passed jìnshì in the same year and served as Hànlín colleagues — Wò therefore has a poem ‘Together-on-Duty in the Yùtáng with Róng’ — yet the surviving exchange poems between the two amount to only one or two; the reason is unclear. In personal stature, Wò set his heart on the dynasty and laboured to support it: a frail literatus who nonetheless faced down the rebel faction; his line ‘Risking the realm I once stroked the tiger’s whiskers’ is no empty boast — for purely loyal and lucid integrity Wò is incomparably greater than Róng. In literary craft, however, Róng’s poems are euphonious and elegant, often retaining the residual flavour of the mid-Táng. Compared with Wò, Róng’s are equal or superior. Among the Tiān-yòu-period poets, although Róng cannot match the spaciousness of Sīkōng Tú, the penetration of Luó Yǐn, the copiousness of Pí Rìxiū, or the strangeness of Zhōu Pǔ, his works can scarcely be ranked behind the rest. The Tángshū records that when Zhāozōng was restored to the throne, Róng before the imperial seat composed more than ten edicts in a single sitting, all apt and exact in their language; the Tángshī jìshì further records that when Lǐ Jùchuān 李巨川 drafted a thanks-memorial for Hán Jiàn 韓建 and showed it to Róng, Róng on hearing it through composed his own version on the spot, which Jùchuān could not stop praising. He was indeed a ‘ringing bell among the bronze of his time’. Respectfully presented, Qiánlóng 46 / 10 (1781). Chief compilers: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.”
Abstract
Wú Róng (CBDB id 93246, d. 903 per the Tángrénwù zhī-shi bēisù dataset) was the principal poetic voice of Zhāozōng’s post-885 Hànlín, a contemporary of Hán Wò 韓偓, Tuō Básīgōng (i.e., Tuō Tuō unexceptionally not relevant), and the late-Táng prose master Lǐ Jùchuān 李巨川. The collection’s title — “Tang-Hero Songs” — connects to a sub-genre of late-Táng court poetry valorizing the embattled imperial-restoration moment of Tiānfù (901–904). Roughly contemporaneous with Yīlóu jí 倚樓集 (the lost collection associated with Wú Róng’s father-in-law Wéi Yīluò) and the early manuscript circulation of Hán Wò’s Xiānglián jí 香奩集.
The dating — notBefore 889 (his examination year) to notAfter 903 (his death) — covers the active poetic career; surviving poems mostly post-date Hànlín appointment in the early 890s. CBDB confirms d. 903; lifedates not catalog-given.
Translations and research
- 王福棟 Wáng Fú-dòng. 2014. Wú Róng yán-jiū 吳融研究. Beijing: 中國社會科學. — Standard modern monograph.
- Articles in Táng-yán-jiū 唐研究 (Peking University) on the Hán Wò–Wú Róng Hàn-lín circle.
- No substantial Western-language scholarship located.
Other points of interest
The collection’s most famous individual piece is the Hé yùn héngyuèsì biān 和韻横岳寺扁 — a Buddhist-temple inscription couplet. Wú Róng’s friendship with the monk-poet Guànxiū 貫休 釋貫休 is also of importance: it is Wú Róng’s preface (the Chányuèjí xù) that opens KR4c0110 Chányuè jí, providing the principal contemporary critical assessment of Guànxiū’s poetry — a key piece of Táng poetic theory in its own right.