Fāngshìxián jūshì xiǎogǎo 方是閒居士小稿
Small Drafts of the “Just-As-It-Is-Idle” Recluse by 劉學箕 (撰)
About the work
Fāngshìxián jūshì xiǎogǎo 方是閒居士小稿 in 2 juǎn is the biéjí of Liú Xuéjī 劉學箕 (zì Xízhī 習之, hào Zhǒngchūnzǐ 種春子 / Fāngshìxián jūshì 方是閒居士), a Southern Sòng yìnshì (recluse-scholar) of Chóngān 崇安 (Fújiàn), a great-grandson of Liú Gé 劉韐, grandson of Liú Zǐhuī 劉子翬 (the famous lǐxué moralist), and son of Liú Píng 劉㻫. Liú Xuéjī never held office. The collection’s two juǎn: the upper juǎn contains 171 ancient-and-modern-style shī; the lower juǎn has fù and miscellaneous prose (27 pieces) plus cí in long-and-short metres (38 pieces). Three Jiādìng-era prefaces — by Liú Huái 劉淮 (溪翁) of Jiànyáng (1217), Zhào Fān 趙蕃 (Dōnglǐ; 1217), and Zhào Bìyuàn 趙必愿 (the Kāifēng Zhào lineage) — are preserved at the front, with a self-record by Liú Xuéjī and disciple-colophons (Yóu Chēn 游郴 and others) at the end.
Tiyao
The minister-editors respectfully report. Fāngshìxián jūshì xiǎogǎo in 2 juǎn by Liú Xuéjī of the Sòng. Xuéjī’s zì was Xízhī, a man of Chóngān. Great-grandson of Liú Gé 劉韐, grandson of Liú Zǐhuī 劉子翬, son of Liú Píng 劉㻫. He retired-from-office and did not serve, calling himself Zhǒngchūnzǐ — his family was wealthy in pavilions and gardens, with a hall named Fāngshìxián; therefore he also called himself Fāngshìxián jūshì.
This compilation: upper juǎn contains 171 ancient-and-modern-style shī; lower juǎn contains fù and miscellaneous prose 27 pieces, and long-short-metre [cí] 38 pieces. At the front are three prefaces by Liú Huái of Jiànyáng (during Jiādìng era), Zhào Fān of Dōnglǐ, and Zhào Bìyuàn of Kāifēng. At the end is Xuéjī’s self-record and his disciple Yóu Chēn et al.’s colophon. The original printing-blocks were scattered in war-troubles. In Yuán Zhìzhèng xīnchǒu [1361], his descendant Zhāng (劉張) re-cut [the blocks]. This compilation is in fact a manuscript-copy from the [reprinted] block-edition.
Liú Huái’s preface says: “His brush-strength is bold-and-free; his shī approaches the rampart of [Bái] Xiāngshān; his cí claps shoulders with [Xīn] Jiàxuān.” Now examining the cí in the collection: although the spirit-strength is somewhat lesser than that of Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾, in the matter of his “Jīnlǚcí — using Qìjí’s rhyme to express my feelings” — the piece is grief-stirring and impassioned, with loyal-and-filial qì leaping from the paper. He is not unworthy of being Liú Gé’s descendant; even if you placed [his works] inside Xīn Jiàxuān’s collection, [the editor] would scarcely be able to tell them apart. What Liú Huái says is by no means false.
As for his shī: although broadly emerging from Bái Jūyì, the qìwèi (vital-savor) is rather thin. His gēxíng often run-the-brush in unrestrained sweep, sometimes revealing strange peaks — but at other times slipping into the over-fast or over-coarse — a different formation altogether from Bái Jūyì. To say that he can stand-against (kànghéng) Bái Jūyì, as Liú Huái does, perhaps still falls short. Qiánlóng 44 [1779], 7th month, respectfully collated.
Abstract
Fāngshìxián jūshì xiǎogǎo is a small but well-attested biéjí of a Southern Sòng recluse-poet who lived through the Jiādìng era (1208–24) and beyond. The dating bracket is approximate: Liú Xuéjī’s birth date is uncertain but his three prefaces are firmly dated to Jiādìng 10 (1217 — Liú Huái’s preface explicitly dated to Jiādìng shí lìdōng 嘉定十年立冬) and Jiādìng dīngchǒu 十月二十九日 (also 1217 — Zhào Fān’s preface). Liú Xuéjī’s preface himself describes “nián wèi wǔshí” (not yet 50) when he moved to Nánshān and built his Fāngshìxián hall ten years prior to the prefaces — i.e. ca. 1207. CBDB index year 1168 places his birth around the late 1160s. Therefore: the composition span is ca. 1190 (mature poetic activity) through ca. 1230 (likely death, given the prefaces and his self-record).
The historical-cultural significance of the collection: Liú Xuéjī is one of the better-attested Southern Sòng yǐnjūnzǐ (gentleman-recluses) by virtue of his jiāshì — descent from Liú Gé (the loyal-martyr who died at the Jìngkāng fall, 1126), Liú Zǐhuī (Zhū Xī’s teacher and a figure of the Mínxué lineage), and Liú Píng. The three prefaces — particularly Zhào Bìyuàn’s, which traces the family genealogy through Liú Zhōngxiǎn (Gé), Liú Shǎofù (Zǐhuī), Liú Zhōngsù (Liú’s maternal grandfather Wáng Yìngchén 王應辰?) — frame Liú Xuéjī as inheriting his ancestors’ jiéyì (loyal-righteousness) through choosing seclusion rather than office.
The cí are stylistically Xīn Qìjí-school: the Jīnlǚ qū setting Liú’s shùhuái poem to Xīn Qìjí’s rhyme is the centerpiece, with its guóchǐ jiāchóu (national-shame, family-feud) imagery transparently invoking the Jìngkāng memory through the family’s own martyrdom. The Sìkù editors regard this lyric as so close to Xīn Qìjí’s own work that it could be inserted into Xīn’s collection undetected.
Translations and research
- Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 (ed. Táng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋) collects Liú Xué-jī’s cí.
- Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩 collects his shī.
- 莫礪鋒 et al., 南宋四明六先生研究 and related Mín-Xué surveys touch on the Liú-family literary descendants.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The transmission history is itself interesting: original blocks lost in war, recut in Yuán Zhìzhèng 21 (1361, xīnchǒu) by a descendant named Zhāng 張, and the Sìkù recension is a manuscript-copy from that re-cut block-edition. This is one of the cleaner transmissions for a 2-juǎn late-Sòng biéjí — in contrast to the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn reconstructions that constitute most of this section of the Sìkù late-Sòng collection.