Ānwǎntáng jí 安晚堂集
Collected Works from the Hall of Late Repose by 鄭清之 (zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A residual fragment of the collected works of Zhèng Qīngzhī 鄭清之 (1176–1251), Lǐzōng-era chief councillor and biéhào Ānwǎn 安晚 (whence the title). Originally 60 juan as printed in Sòng times at Línān 臨安, only juan 6 through 12 survive — exclusively verse, with no prose at all — preserved as a single-genre extract of about one tenth of the original. The collection’s importance is double: it documents the personal voice of one of the most influential political figures of the central thirteenth century, and it preserves a body of zànméi 詠梅 and zànxuě 詠雪 verse that the Qīng tíyào judges among the more polished products of late-Sòng biéjí.
Tiyao
We respectfully observe that the Ānwǎntáng jí in twelve juan was composed by Zhèng Qīngzhī of the Sòng. Qīngzhī’s original míng was Xiè 燮, zì Wénshū 文叔; he later changed his name and took the zì Déyuán 德源, with Ānwǎn 安晚 as his biéhào. He was a native of Yínxiàn. He took the jìnshì in the fourth year of Jiādìng (1211). At the start of the Bǎoqìng era (1225) his merit in the dìngcè (settling-the-succession) earned him cumulative promotion until he served as tàifù and zuǒchéngxiàng. After his death he was given the posthumous title Zhōngdìng. His career is set out in his Sòng shǐ biography. The Ānwǎn jí he composed was originally in sixty juan, printed in the Sòng at Línān; this present text contains only juan six through twelve, which are pure verse without any prose — barely one tenth of the original table of contents. Examining the postface to the Ānwǎn jí in Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禎 Cánwěi jí, that postface likewise records only “the gǔjīntǐ poems, juan 6 to 12”, which means that already in the Kāngxī era there was no complete copy. Wáng Shìzhēn merely remarks that the verse is full of Chán phraseology and does not pronounce on its quality. Examining what we have here, his work for the most part gives direct expression to feeling and is close to Bái Jūyì 白居易; the twenty gǔjīntǐ verse-songs on plum-blossom and on snow are quite worth reading. Moreover, while serving as chief councillor Qīngzhī promoted upright men, and his administration earned at the time the nickname Xiǎo Yuányòu 小元祐 (“Little Yuányòu”); he counts among the genuinely good ministers of the mid-Southern Sòng. So it is not merely his verse that deserves preservation; it is, in any case, no good reason to discard a fragment because the whole has perished. Reverently collated, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-chief Jì Yún 紀昀, with Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊 and Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; chief proofreader Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The transmission of the Ānwǎntáng jí is a textbook case of late-Sòng biéjí attrition. Sòng-imprint testimonies — preserved in the tíyào via Wáng Shìzhēn’s 王士禎 Cánwěi jí postface — establish that the original printed at Línān ran to sixty juan; by the Kāngxī era only the seven juan of gǔjīntǐ poems (juan 6–12) survived, and it is this rump that the Sìkù compilers received. Zhèng Qīngzhī’s role as architect of Lǐzōng’s accession in 1224–5 (the dìngcè zhī gōng 定策之功), his repeated tenure as chief councillor, and his patronage of officials disgraced under Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠 (the so-called Xiǎo Yuányòu 小元祐 administration) make the survival even of this fragment historiographically valuable. The poetry is praised by the tíyào as artistically competent — close in voice to Bái Jūyì 白居易, with twenty noteworthy zànméi and zànxuě compositions — and ideologically congenial; the heavy use of Chán phraseology that Wáng Shìzhēn observed is consistent with the prominence of Buddhist circles around the Lǐzōng court. The work is Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì 宋史藝文志-attested for the original sixty juan; for the seven-juan recension our principal evidence is the Sìkù compilers’ own collation. Endymion Wilkinson’s Chinese History: A New Manual surveys Sòng biéjí in general but does not single out this title.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. Modern scholarship on Zhèng Qīngzhī focuses on his political career (notably in the context of Lǐzōng’s succession) rather than on his verse; see entries in standard reference works on Sòng prosopography (the CBDB record at id 10363) and the Sòng shǐ biography 414.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū tíyào (juan 162, jíbù biéjí lèi sān).
- Sòng shǐ 414 (biography of Zhèng Qīngzhī).
- CBDB id 10363.