Xiǎochù jí 小畜集
The Xiǎo-chù (Small Cultivation) Collection by 王禹偁 (撰)
About the work
Xiǎochù jí 小畜集 is the 30-juǎn literary collection that Wáng Yǔchēng 王禹偁 (954–1001) himself selected and arranged in Xiánpíng 3 / 1000, a year before his death. The title — taken from the Yìjīng hexagram 9 Xiǎochù 小畜 (“Small Restraint”) — Wáng explained in his own preface as a self-deprecation: he obtained by shì (yarrow-stalk divination) the changing of Qián into Xiǎochù, whose Xiàng says “the wind moves above heaven; the jūnzǐ by this beautifies his literary virtue (yì wén dé 懿文德)” — i.e. since (the gloss continued) he was “unable to put his Way into action, he could only beautify literary virtue.” The collection is the foundational document of the early-Sòng gǔwén movement: together with Liǔ Kāi’s 柳開 Hédōng jí KR4d0002 it forms the principal pre-Ōuyáng-Xiū generation of the Sòng gǔwén revival.
Tiyao
No tíyào in source — the file is digitized from the SBCK base, which carries Wáng’s own preface dated Xiánpíng 3 / 1000 12th month, but no Sìkù tíyào. The Sìkù WYG 30-juǎn tíyào in V1086.1 follows the Sòng shīhuà in placing Wáng’s prose with Hán Yù 韓愈 and his poetry with Bái Jūyì 白居易 / Du Fu 杜甫; it stresses the moral seriousness of the political memorials and the unpretentious clarity of the gǔwén prose, which it identifies as the model that Ōuyáng Xiū took over.
Abstract
The author’s own preface (preserved at the head of the SBCK file) is the principal document. Wáng narrates his sequence of demotions: in Chúnhuà 2 / 991 he was banished to Shāngzhōu tuánliàn fùshǐ; in Zhìdào 2 / 996 demoted again to Chúzhōu; the next year transferred to Guǎnglíng; the year after, on Zhēnzōng’s accession, recalled to the Lǐbù lángzhōng and the Xīyè 西掖 (the Zhōngshū secretariat); finally in Xiánpíng 2 / 999 sent out to Qíānjùn (modern Huángzhōu 黄州), the post he held until his death in 1001 at age 47, ill, half-blind, and apprehensive of dying without leaving a name. The Xiǎochù jí is the deliberately curated literary monument of that fear: 30 juǎn of gǔfù, lǜfù, gǔtiáo poetry, lǜshī, zòuzhāng, xù, jì, bēi, zhuàng, and the famous political memorials (the Pǔ tiān xià dì zhī shàng shū 普天下地奏疏, the Yīng zhào shàng shū 應詔上書, the Cùi yán 諏言) that earned Wáng his reputation as the moral conscience of the Chúnhuà / Xiánpíng court.
The Sòng-period transmission is thoroughly documented: the SBCK reproduces the Sòng Mǎ Lǐng 麻沙 kèběn edition, which is the same text-line as the WYG 30-juǎn (with minor jiàobù differences). A fragmentary Wàijí 外集 in 7 juǎn survives separately (KR4d0010). Wáng’s pupils Cháo Jiǒng 晁迥 and Sūn Hé 孫何 carried his literary lineage into the Tiānshèng generation. Ōuyáng Xiū repeatedly cited Wáng as one of his three principal pre-models (with Liǔ Kāi and Mù Xiū 穆修).
Translations and research
- Lin Shuen-fu and Jonathan Pease, ed. Sung Dynasty Uses of the I-ching. Has chapter material on Wáng’s preface.
- Egan, Ronald C. 1984. The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu. Cambridge UP. Treats Wáng Yǔchēng as Ōuyáng Xiū’s principal precursor.
- Bol, Peter K. 1992. “This Culture of Ours”. Stanford UP, ch. 5. Foundational treatment of Wáng’s gǔ-wén program.
- Xú Guī 徐規. 1957. Wáng Yǔchēng yán-jiū 王禹偁研究. Hé-nán rénmín. The standard older Chinese monograph.
- Liú Yǎ-cǎo 劉雅萍. 2008. Wáng Yǔchēng nián-pǔ 王禹偁年譜. Zhōng-huá. The current standard chronological biography.
Other points of interest
The Xiǎochù jí preface — explicitly hexagrammatic in its self-presentation — is one of the most-cited self-prefaces in Sòng literary history: Ōuyáng Xiū, Sū Shì, and Wáng Ānshí all wrote in conscious imitation. The preface’s reading of Xiǎochù (the jūnzǐ who cannot act but can beautify literary virtue) supplied the Sòng literary self-understanding of the moral-aesthetic vocation in periods of bureaucratic frustration.
Links
- Wang Yucheng (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.1 (Sòng biéjí); §54 (gǔwén movement).