Fāngquán shījí 方泉詩集
Poetry Collection of Fāngquán by 周文璞 (撰)
About the work
A four-juàn poetry collection — one juàn of fù, three juàn of shī — of the Southern Sòng poet Zhōu Wénpú 周文璞 (zì Jìnxiān 晉仙, hào Fāngquán 方泉, also Shānyíng 山楹), of Yánggǔ 陽穀 in modern Shāndōng. He was a contemporary of Jiāng Kuí 姜夔, Gě Tiānmín 葛天民, and Hán Hù 韓淲, with whom he exchanged poems in the late-Guāngzōng / Níngzōng decades.
Tiyao
Your servants and others respectfully submit: the Fāngquán shījí in four juàn was composed by Zhōu Wénpú of the Sòng. Wénpú, zì Jìnxiān, hào Fāngquán and also Shānyíng, was a man of Yánggǔ. He was contemporary with Jiāng Kuí, Gě Tiānmín, Hán Hù, and others. The collection comprises one juàn of fù and three juàn of shī. Zhāng Duānyì’s 張端義 Guìěr jí 貴耳集 lavishly praises his “Song of the Two Lords of Guànkǒu” (Guànkǒu Èrláng gē 灌口二郎歌), “Song of Listening to Ōuyáng’s Qín” (Tīng Ōuyáng qín xíng), and “Song of the Bronze Pagoda” (Jīntóng tǎ gē), holding them no less than the work of Hè [Zhīzhāng 賀知章] and Bái [Jūyì 白居易]. Yet Wénpú’s longer pieces in the ancient style suffer somewhat from a fading energy and do not escape the conventional manner of his age — Zhāng Duānyì’s comparison with Lǐ Bái 李白 and Lǐ Hè 李賀 is hardly apt. As for his shorter old-style and recent-style pieces, these can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the collections of Báishí [Jiāng Kuí], Wúhuái [Gě Tiānmín], and Jiànquán [Hán Hù]; no wonder they exchanged frequent answer-poems. The “Song of the Two Lords of Guànkǒu” praised by Zhāng Duānyì does not appear in the collection under that title, but at the head of juàn 4 there is a “Song of the Spirit-Lord of Qútáng” (Qútáng shénjūn gē 瞿塘神君歌); from its diction this is presumably the so-called “Song of the Two Lords of Guànkǒu” with its title changed because the original was insufficiently elegant. Respectfully collated in the fifth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781]. Chief compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; general collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Zhōu Wénpú’s lifedates are unknown. The Sìkù tíyào places him “contemporary with Jiāng Kuí, Gě Tiānmín, and Hán Hù,” all active c. 1180–1235; CBDB has no recorded year for him. The Guìěr jí of Zhāng Duānyì, written c. 1248, refers to him in the past tense, suggesting he had died by the early Chúnyòu 淳祐 era. The composition window adopted here, 1180–1240, brackets this floruit. The Fāngquán shījí is one of the few full surviving collections from the looser, post-sìlíng Yǒngjiā / Hángzhōu jiānghú circle around Jiāng Kuí, and is regularly anthologised in late-Sòng poetry for its imitations of Lǐ Hè and its Daoist landscape pieces. The Sìkù editors are typical of late-Qīng critical opinion in finding Zhāng Duānyì’s high estimate excessive but conceding the quality of the shorter pieces. Wilkinson’s Chinese History does not single out Zhōu Wénpú; he is treated in the standard QuánSòngshī and in Sòngshī jìshì 宋詩紀事 (juàn 67).
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For Chinese scholarship see the Quán-Sòng-shī (Běijīng dàxué, 1991–98) entries on Zhōu Wénpú with critical apparatus; and the Sòngshī jì-shì and Sòngshī jì-shì bǔ-yí 宋詩紀事補遺 entries.