Lèjìng jí 樂靜集
The Joyful Quietude Collection by 李昭玘 (撰)
About the work
Lèjìng jí 樂靜集 in 30 juǎn preserves the writings of Lǐ Zhāoqǐ 李昭玘, Yuányòu jìnshì and Yuányòu dǎngjí-listed late-Northern-Sòng official. The title takes Lǐ’s hào Lèjìng xiānshēng 樂靜先生, adopted during his fifteen-year retirement after the 1102 proscription. Editorial origin uncertain (no preface or postface); not recorded in Sòng shǐ Yìwénzhì or Wénxiàn tōngkǎo; Yè Shèng’s Lùzhútáng shūmù lists it without juǎn-count; only Jiāo Hóng’s Guóshǐ jīngjízhì records 30 juǎn — matching the present recension. Structural division (per the Sìkù tíyào): poetry 4 juǎn; Xúzhōu shíshì 1; jì 1; zhuànxù 1; miscellaneous prose 2; letters 2; memorials 3; qǐzhuàng 7; shū 1; qīngcí shūwén 1; monastic shū 1; jìnjuǎn 2; cè (essays for guǎnzhí test) 1; bēizhì xíngzhuàng 3.
Tiyao
The Sìkù tíyào: Lèjìng jí in 30 juǎn, by Lǐ Zhāoqǐ of the Sòng. Zhāoqǐ, zì Chéngjì. Sòng shǐ says of Jìnán; examining Zhāoqǐ was originally registered at Jùyě — must have served at Jìyīn, hence the shǐ’s erroneous “Jìnán”. Yuányòu jìnshì; held office through Tídiǎn Yǒngxìng / Jīngxī / Jīngdōng xíngyù; on the Yuánfú dǎng matter was deprived of office; Huīzōng acceded — summoned as Yòusī yuánwàiláng, promoted Tàicháng shǎoqīng, out as Zhī Cāngzhōu; in early Chóngníng listed in the dǎngjí; in early Shàoxīng posthumously restored Zhí Huīyóugé. The shǐ says Zhāoqǐ in the proscription-and-retirement period lived in retirement fifteen years, self-styled Lèjìng xiānshēng, lodging-thoughts in fǎshū (calligraphy) and túhuà (painting), storing them in ten satchels, calling them Yànyóu shíjiāo. Hóu Méng once tested the persons Zhāoqǐ had recommended, and on Méng’s accession to executive-position, recalling-old-debt sent someone to convey his message; Zhāoqǐ asked only for the mìgé fǎtiē (Imperial Library calligraphy-models) and that was all. His gūjiè zìshǒu (lonely-pure self-keeping), bù jíjí shìjìn (not-eager for advancement) being like this — hence his xiōngdù yíkuàng (chest-bearing equable-and-broad), what came forth as wénzhāng — all guāngmíng jùnwěi (luminous-brilliant, surpassing-grand), without dependence-and-base, without commotion-and-rage qì. Furthermore was early known to Sū Shì — ěrrú mùrǎn (ear-soaked, eye-tinged) — having diǎnxíng (typical-form). At the end of Northern Sòng he stands out as one zuòzhě (writer); reckoned at the time level-with Cháo Bǔzhī — indeed not in vain. Qiánlóng 44 (1779), 3rd month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Lèjìng jí preserves the writings of one of the more significant Yuányòu-faction figures of the late Northern Sòng, ranked alongside Cháo Bǔzhī by his contemporaries. Lǐ Zhāoqǐ’s career follows the typical Yuányòu trajectory — early SūShì recognition, Yuányòu office, Yuánfú / Chóngníng proscription, retreat into private literary-artistic culture. The fifteen-year xiánjū (retirement) period (c. 1102–1117) — during which he amassed his Yànyóu shíjiāo art collection — is one of the principal documented Northern-Sòng cases of dǎngjí-driven retirement-into-collecting that anticipates the early-Southern-Sòng art-and-antiquity culture.
The Hóu Méng anecdote — Zhāoqǐ’s request for only mìgé fǎtiē (calligraphy-models from the Imperial Library) when offered patronage — is the canonical character-defining episode in the Sòng shǐ tradition.
The Sìkù tíyào’s correction of Lǐ’s native place (Jùyě, not Jìnán) is one of the small philological gestures that distinguishes the Sìkù compilation from a passive transmission of Sòng shǐ errors. Composition bracket runs from his Yuányòu office through Shàoxīng (he died c. 1131); the bulk of the biéjí’s personal-literary content dates from the post-1102 retirement.
Translations and research
- Sòng-shǐ j. 347 — biography.
- Egan, Ronald. The Problem of Beauty (Harvard 2006). Background on the late-Northern-Sòng art-collecting culture.
- Sturman, Peter Charles. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China. Yale, 1997. Background on calligraphy-models tradition Lǐ collected.
- No dedicated study of Lǐ Zhāo-qǐ located.
Other points of interest
- The Yànyóu shíjiāo — Lǐ’s ten satchels of fǎshū and túhuà — is one of the better-documented private biéjí-mentioned art collections of the Northern Sòng.