Wèinán wénjí 渭南文集
The Wèi-nán Prose Collection by 陸游 (撰)
About the work
Wèinán wénjí 渭南文集 in 50 juǎn is the prose-collection of Lù Yóu 陸游 (1125–1210), companion to the Jiànnán shīgǎo (KR4d0267): where the Jiànnán gathers his poetry, the Wèinán gathers his prose. The title derives from Lù Yóu’s late ennoblement as Wèinánxiànbó 渭南縣伯, hence his self-cognomen Lù Wèinán. As Lù Yóu remarked to his son Lù Zǐyù 陸子虛: “Jiànnán is a poet’s matter; it cannot be applied to prose; therefore [I] separately name [the prose collection] Wèinán”. Edited and printed by Lù Zǐyù as Zhī Liàyángxiàn in Jiādìng 13 (1220), with Lù Zǐyù’s postface preserved at the head. The Míng Hóngzhì re-cut by Wú Kuān 吳寬 (1503) further established the standard recension. The collection includes Lù’s RùShǔ jì 入蜀記 (his Sìchuān travel diary), his Mǔdān pǔ 牡丹譜 (peony catalog), and his Lèfǔ cí 樂府詞 — works that the postface notes “should originally have circulated separately” but were incorporated as appendices following the Lúlíngkān Ōuyánggōngjí 廬陵刋歐陽公集 example.
Tiyao
[The KR4d0268 source file is the SBCK recension; the principal prefatory matter consists of Wú Kuān’s 1503 (Hóngzhì rénxū) preface to the renewed Liàyáng cut and Lù Zǐyù’s 1220 (Jiādìng 13) original postface. The standard Sìkù tíyào (j. 159) records the work as 50 juǎn, by Lù Yóu of the Sòng, characterizes Lù’s prose as taking the liùjīng and Zuǒshì and Zhuāngzǐ and Lísāo and Bān/Mǎ and Hán [Yù] and Zēng [Gǒng] as masters — a wide-ranging neoclassicism — and praises the mature work as hùnrán wéiyījiāyán (“flowing-fully forming one school’s words”). The Sìkù editors note that Lù’s prose has fewer of the period’s conventional ǒulìwěiruò (“paired-parallel withered-weak”) tendencies than most Southern-Sòng biéjí.]*
Abstract
Wèinán wénjí contains the full prose corpus of Lù Yóu in the recension that he himself approved (as preserved in Lù Zǐyù’s 1220 postface). The structure is genre-organized: biǎo 表 (memorials, juǎn 1–2), jiān 牋 (capital-court letters), qǐ 啟 (occasional letters), zhuàng 狀 (memorials), zhāzǐ 劄子 (court memoranda), jì 記 (notes/inscriptions), xù 序 (prefaces), bēizhì 碑誌 (stelae and tomb-inscriptions), tíbá 題跋 (colophons), Dàoshì císhū 道釋詞疏 (Daoist and Buddhist liturgical pieces), and cí 詞 (lyrics). The RùShǔ jì (Sìchuān travel diary, 1170 — among the most important pre-modern Chinese travel diaries) and the Lǎo xuéān bǐjì 老學庵筆記 (separately cataloged) are not in the WYG main collection but Lù’s family-edition included them as appendices.
The dating bracket: 1162 (Lù’s earliest dateable prose) through 1210 (his death year, with publication of this principal recension by Lù Zǐyù in 1220). The 1220 Liàyáng cut is the textual ancestor of the WYG, the SBCK, and all standard modern editions.
The collection’s most-cited single piece is the Jiànmén dào 劎門道 postface to the Jiànnán shīgǎo (preserved in the Jiànnán WYG/SBCK), in which Lù narrates how the title Jiànnán was chosen; but the Wèinán itself contains substantial autobiographical and political material — notably the Diàn xiàoyúcǎo táng jì 弔小於草堂記, the zhāzǐ against the Héyì (peace policy) faction, and the late xièbiǎo on his retirement.
Translations and research
- Hargett, James M. 1985. Riding the River Home: A Complete and Annotated Translation of Lu You’s Diary of a Boat Trip to Shu. Translates the Rù-Shǔ jì.
- Watson, Burton, trans. 1973. The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases. Includes prose translations.
- Duke, Michael S. 1977. Lu You. Treats the prose alongside the poetry.
- 錢仲聯. 1985. 《劍南詩稿校注》 (8 vols.). Shanghai. Companion modern annotated edition.
Other points of interest
The deliberate separation of Jiànnán (poetry) and Wèinán (prose) by Lù Yóu himself, on the principle that “Jiànnán is a poet’s matter”, is a useful expression of late-Sòng generic self-consciousness — Lù treated poetry and prose not just as different genres but as different bodies of work worthy of distinct editorial frames.