Xuányīng jí 玄英集
The Profound-Brilliant Collection by 方干 (撰)
About the work
The eight-juǎn poetry collection of Fāng Gān 方干 (zì Xióngfēi 雄飛, of Xīndìng 新定, 809?–888?), the great late-Táng recluse-poet of Huìjī 會稽. Xuányīng — “Profound-Brilliant” — is the posthumous sīshì (private posthumous title) bestowed on Fāng by his pupils after his death; the title of the collection derives from it. The text contains some 307 poems in pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic lǜ and juéjù, with Fāng’s signature five-character line-craft as the dominant note. The WYG edition is the Míng Jiājìng dīngyǒu (1537) recutting by Fāng’s descendant Fāng Tíngxǐ 方廷璽, divided into eight juǎn (the original Sòng-period ten-juǎn form is preserved in the Xíshì Bǎijiā Tángshī 洞庭席氏百家唐詩 lineage with 316 poems; the Quán Tángshī later expanded the count to 347). All extant recensions descend from the lost original Sòng jí of ca. 370 poems compiled by Fāng Gān’s nephew Yáng Yǎn 楊弇 and his disciple, the monk Jūyuǎn 居遠, with a preface by Wáng Zàn 王贊 (Hànlín drafter, dated Qiánníng bǐngchén = 896) and a zhuàn by Sūn Hé 孫郃.
Tiyao
“We respectfully report: Xuányīng jí, eight juǎn. Composed by Fāng Gān of the Táng. Gān’s zì was Xióngfēi; he was of Xīndìng. The maternal grandson of Zhāng Bāyuán 章八元 [the late-Táng poet], Gān made a name in the south of the Yángzǐ for his poetry. In Xiántōng (860–873) he attempted the examinations once and failed; he then withdrew to Huìjī. After his death, Chancellor Zhāng Wénwèi 張文蔚 [whose son was the poet Zhāng Wén-wèi-zhi] memorialized for the posthumous award of the jìnshì degree to fifteen distinguished but officeless men of letters; Gān was among them. His pupils gave him the private posthumous name Xuányīng xiānshēng 玄英先生, from which the collection takes its title. The Xīn Tángshū yìwénzhì gives the collection in ten juǎn. In Qiánníng bǐngchén (896), the zhōngshū shèrén Wáng Zàn of Qíxiàn prefaced the collection. Lèān Sūn Hé wrote his zhuàn. Hé Guāngyuǎn’s 何光遠 Jiànjiè lù praises Gān’s poems for ‘forging characters and lines without a single failure, sustaining the spirit of Fēng and Yǎ, exhausting the principle of objects.’ Sūn Hé’s zhuàn characterizes him as ‘lofty, firm, towering, sharp-edged.’ Indeed his qìgé (style and bearing) is clear and remote, his bearing leisured and distant — among the gauzily intricate, vulgar trivialities of the late-Táng he alone manages to lift his head, and was for a time the household god of the southern shījiā. However, his heptasyllabic verse is shallow and weak by comparison with his pentasyllabic, and apart from the Hǎoshì líntíng 郝氏林亭 there are not many fine couplets — the limits of his age would not let him do otherwise. Wáng Zàn’s preface says that Gān’s nephew Yáng Yǎn and his disciple, the monk Jūyuǎn, gathered Gān’s surviving 370-odd poems and arranged them in ten juǎn. The present text is the Míng Jiājìng dīngyǒu (1537) recutting by his descendant Fāng Tíngxǐ; it has only eight juǎn and 307 poems — the juǎn and table of contents differ from the original. The recent Dòngtíng Xíshì Bǎijiā Tángshī edition follows a Sòng cutting and remains in ten juǎn with 316 poems. The Quán Tángshī edition has 347 poems. None of these matches Wáng Zàn’s preface-figure of 370 — clearly the transmission has long suffered losses. Respectfully presented, Qiánlóng 43 / 6 (1778). Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General reviser: Lù Fèichí.”
Abstract
Fāng Gān (CBDB id 17029, 809–888?) is one of the three or four most celebrated late-Táng recluse-poets, alongside Sīkōng Tú 司空圖 and Yáo Hé 姚合. CBDB confirms 809–888? per the Rénmíng dà cídiǎn. He was a maternal grandson of the poet Zhāng Bāyuán 章八元 (a Dàlì shí cáizǐ 大歷十才子) of Xīndìng in Mùzhōu, and a friend and student of Yáo Hé 姚合 (then prefect of Hángzhōu). He failed the metropolitan examinations in Xiántōng (the Sìkù says one attempt) and retired permanently to Huìjī, where he taught poetry to a cluster of younger WúYuè poets including Sūn Hé 孫郃 and the monk Jūyuǎn 居遠. He never held office; his posthumous jìnshì (along with fourteen others, on the memorial of the late-Táng prime minister Zhāng Wénwèi) is dated to the very late Táng. His sīshì “Xuányīng xiānshēng” was conferred by his pupils.
The SòngYuánMíng critics universally distinguish Fāng’s pentasyllabic lǜ (precise in line-forging, refined in image, marked by a clear and remote qìgé) from his heptasyllabic work (judged thinner, weaker). The textual situation is complicated: Wáng Zàn’s preface gives 370+ poems in 10 juǎn, but every later recension is shorter — 316 in the Sòng-derived Xíshì edition; 307 in the Míng family-cutting (the WYG basis); 347 in the Quán Tángshī (apparently expanded by gleaning anthologies). None matches Wáng Zàn’s count.
The catalog meta gives no specific dates; CBDB’s 809–888? is followed here. The collection’s date bracket is the active poetic career, with the notAfter the year of the original 896 preface (Qiánníng bǐngchén). The notBefore is conservatively set to 850, the rough beginning of Fāng’s mature poetic decade.
Translations and research
- 王勝奇 Wáng Shèng-qí. 2018. Fāng Gān shī yán-jiū 方干詩研究. — Standard modern Chinese-language monograph.
- 馬金香 Mǎ Jīn-xiāng. Fāng Gān shī jí jiào-zhù 方干詩集校注. Critical edition.
- 蕭占鵬 Xiāo Zhàn-péng. Articles in Wén-xué yí-chǎn on Fāng Gān’s place in the late-Táng poetic communities of Wú-Yuè.
- No substantial Western-language scholarship located.
Other points of interest
The most-cited poem from the collection is Hǎoshì líntíng 郝氏林亭 (Hǎo Family’s Forest-Pavilion), which the Sìkù tiyao singles out as Fāng’s only really major heptasyllabic piece. Fāng was also celebrated for being physically disfigured (cleft lip) — a detail that reinforced his reputation as a recluse-poet whose only hope of advancement was through verse, not appearance.