Yěgǔ shīgǎo 野谷詩稿
Wild-Valley Poetry Drafts by 趙汝鐩 (撰)
About the work
A six-juàn poetry collection of the Sòng imperial-clan poet Zhào Rǔchéng 趙汝鐩 (1172–1246, zì Míngwēng 明翁, hào Yěgǔ 野谷, of Yuánzhōu), one of the so-called jiānghú poets of the late Níngzōng / early Lǐzōng era. He is conventionally grouped with Jiāng Kuí 姜夔, Zhōu Bì 周弼, Dèng Lín 鄧林, and Sī Zhí 斯植 as a representative of the small-collection (xiǎojí 小集) tradition.
Tiyao
Your servants and others respectfully submit: the Yěgǔ shīgǎo in six juàn was composed by Zhào Rǔchéng 趙汝鐩 of the Sòng imperial clan. Rǔchéng, zì Míngwēng, lived at Yuánzhōu. He attained the jìnshì in the second year of Jiātài of Níngzōng [1202] and was appointed to library office. In the Jiādìng era [1208–1224] he served on detached duty at Zhènjiāng managing the salt and tea monopolies. Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禎 Chíběi ǒután 池北偶談 records that Huáng Yújjì 黃虞稷 once transcribed twenty-eight Sòng small-collections; Wáng Shìzhēn copied with his own hand three of these — Jiāng Kuí, Zhōu Bì, Dèng Lín — and from the remaining nineteen extracted choice couplets, with Rǔchéng at the head, recording in all twenty couplets in five-character lines and one couplet in seven-character lines, and praising his five-character regulated verse for occasionally producing fine lines while finding his seven-character pieces vulgar and his ballads loose in their cadence. Yet [Wáng Shìzhēn] held that Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 preface, which extolled Rǔchéng’s vigour and cadence as truly the work of a slayer of dragons and grappler of tigers, and went so far as to compare him with the Jiànān and Huángchū poets [of the Wèi], was clearly excessive. (Note: this present edition does not contain Liú Kèzhuāng’s preface — clearly lost in transmission.) [Wáng Shìzhēn] further evaluates Sī Zhí’s Cǎizhī jí 採芝集, saying that Sī and Zhào Rǔchéng both have many fine lines in their five-character verse but neither has any far-reaching spiritual quality — and his judgement is just. Since the Táng, those who excel in all genres alike are no more than a handful; the rest each have their strengths and weaknesses. Mèng Hàorán and Wéi Yìngwù dominate all ages with their five-character verse, but their seven-character work is uniformly inadequate, let alone what comes after Yáo Hé. From the late Táng and Five Dynasties down through the Nine Monks and the Four Spirits, painstaking polishing produced nothing more than five-character technique — that is the path of the jiānghú school as a whole, and it cannot be made to bear the demand for the other genres. A single flower or stone is now and then a delight; men of Rǔchéng’s stamp are not therefore to be set aside by those who discourse on the art. Respectfully collated in the sixth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777]. Chief compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; general collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Zhào Rǔchéng was a member of the Sòng imperial clan with a jìnshì of 1202 (Jiātài 2). CBDB id 10507 gives lifedates 1172–1246, the bracket adopted here for the composition of the verse. He served as a librarian (guǎnzhí 館職), then as supervisor of the salt-and-tea monopolies at Zhènjiāng during the Jiādìng era (1208–1224), and held further office under Lǐzōng. The Yěgǔ shīgǎo originally circulated with a preface by Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 (1187–1269), conspicuously lost in the transmission line that fed the WYG, the loss being noted by the Sìkù editors themselves. The Sìkù editors’ careful balancing-out of Liú Kèzhuāng’s enthusiasm against Wáng Shìzhēn’s seventeenth-century sceptical reading is a model statement of how the late-Qīng critical establishment domesticated the jiānghú aesthetic — admitting its limitations (narrow technical compass; weakness in seven-character genres) while affirming its claim to a niche in the canon. Wilkinson’s Chinese History does not single out Zhào Rǔchéng; his standard treatment is in the QuánSòngshī and the Sòngshī jìshì.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For Chinese-language scholarship see the Quán-Sòng-shī (Běijīng dàxué, 1991–98) entries and apparatus; and Lǐ Yán 李艷, “Zhào Rǔchéng Yěgǔ shīgǎo yánjiū” 趙汝鐩《野谷詩稿》研究 (M.A. thesis genre).
Other points of interest
Wáng Shìzhēn’s Chíběi ǒután anecdote preserved at the front of the Sìkù entry is a key witness to the early-Qīng manuscript history of the jiānghú small-collections — Huáng Yújjì’s hand-copy of the twenty-eight Sòng xiǎojí, of which only the three pieces personally re-copied by Wáng Shìzhēn (Jiāng Kuí, Zhōu Bì, Dèng Lín) reach us in continuous textual tradition.
Links
- Wikipedia
- CBDB id 10507