Sìliù biāozhǔn 四六標準
The Standard of Parallel Prose by 李劉 (zhuàn 撰) with 孫雲翼 (jiānzhù 箋注)
About the work
A 40-juan, 71-category, 1,096-piece anthology of the parallel-prose (sìliù 四六) of Lǐ Liú 李劉 (c. 1175–c. 1238), the late-Southern-Sòng sìliù virtuoso, edited and titled posthumously by his disciple Luó Féngjí 羅逄吉 from the master’s earlier-career drafts at the Hé 何 family library and from his work in Húnán and Sìchuān. The Míng scholar Sūn Yúnyì 孫雲翼 supplied a jiānzhù (annotation) — described by the Sìkù tíyào as “miscellaneous and tangled” but useful for the historical-allusion kǎozhèng it incidentally provides. The work is the canonical late-Southern-Sòng manual of sìliù parallel prose: 71 social categories — yán shízhèng 言時政, zhìjiàn 贄見, lùnshì 論事, jiànjǔ 薦舉, xiè jídì 謝及第, shēngchén 生辰, hūnyīn 婚姻, shīfù 師傅, zǎixiàng 宰相 down to xuézhí 學職, jìnshì 進士, hèzhèng 賀正, hèdōng 賀冬 — covering virtually every social occasion in late-Sòng official life that called for a parallel-prose qǐ 啟. As such it is a key witness to sìliù both as social technology and as a literary genre.
Tiyao
We respectfully observe that the Sìliù biāozhǔn tíyào in forty juan was composed by Lǐ Liú of the Sòng with annotation by Sūn Yúnyì of the Míng. Liú’s zì was Gōngfǔ; he was a native of Chóngrén. He took the jìnshì in the seventh year of Jiādìng (1214) and rose in office to Bǎozhāng gé dàizhì. Yúnyì has a Júshān sìliù jiānzhù 橘山四六箋注 already on record. Liú in his entire life had no other affair worth recording, dedicating himself solely to parallel prose: he wrote a Lèigǎo 類藁, a Xù lèigǎo 續類藁, and a Méitíng sìliù 梅亭四六, all of which we have been unable to see. The present text is what his disciple Luó Féngjí compiled, drawing together the works Liú produced in his early years at the Hé family library and during his time in Húnán and Sìchuān, and giving them the title Biāozhǔn — “Standard” — a phrase of disciple-deference toward his master. There are seventy-one categories in all, totalling 1,096 pieces. Ever since the Six Dynasties, jiānqǐ (notes-and-letters of formal communication) have largely been parallel-couplet — but that was simply the prevailing style of the age, not a separately recognised genre. By the Sòng there was no festival, official appointment, auspicious or grievous event for which a qǐ was not used and no person who did not use a qǐ; and the qǐ had to be in sìliù. So within sìliù itself a specialised practice arose. At the start of the Southern crossing the old craft was still alive: Sūn Dí 孫覿, Wāng Zǎo 汪藻 and the rest produced no shortage of fine pieces. By Liú’s late efflorescence, the only criterion was fluency and aptness: there was no longer the gravitas of the earlier masters. Going with the current and not turning back, the form became an external supplement to the encyclopaedia and a duplicate of bureaucratic paperwork — the saturation of the ornament had reached its limit. Yet what Liú wrote was reasonably exact in its handling of allusion, and his diction is clear and fluent; within the rules of that art he had something distinctly to offer. Hence the old text, which has continued to circulate, is here recorded and preserved, both to show that there is in literature this one kind, and that within this special branch there is this one canonical author — also enough to mark the rise and fall of the literary tide. As to Yúnyì’s annotation, it is exceedingly scattered and tangled, but it does have material useful for kǎozhèng, and what was carried with the old text we have for the time being kept attached. Reverently collated, sixth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778). Editor-in-chief Jì Yún, with Lù Xīxióng and Sūn Shìyì; chief proofreader Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Sìliù biāozhǔn is the fundamental text for the study of late-Southern-Sòng parallel-prose. It survives in transmission rather than excavation: the tíyào explicitly notes that the master’s other parallel-prose collections (Lèigǎo, Xù lèigǎo, Méitíng sìliù) were already lost by the Qīng, and what we have is a single posthumous recension by Lǐ Liú’s disciple Luó Féngjí 羅逄吉. The categorisation is the work’s distinguishing feature. The 71 categories — beginning with yán shízhèng, zhìjiàn, lùnshì (juan 1–2), the office-acceptance and resignation ceremonies (juan 5–6), the imperial-establishment categories (juan 14–17 — shīfù, zǎixiàng, cānzhèng, shūmì), the wide range of central and provincial offices (juan 18–37) and ending with the calendrical greetings hèzhèng and hèdōng (juan 39–40) — function as a typology of the qǐ genre and, in passing, as a directory of late-Sòng officialdom. The Sìkù tíyào’s assessment is double-edged: Lǐ Liú is recognised as a virtuoso within his form (he is “zhuózhuó zì lì” and “honest, lucid, apt in allusion”), but the form itself is condemned as a degeneration of sìliù into bureaucratic flying-piece. The Míng-era jiānzhù by Sūn Yúnyì 孫雲翼 is preserved partially out of respect for transmission, partially for its incidental usefulness in tracing allusions. The notBefore / notAfter dates here use Lǐ Liú’s career window (1214 jìnshì) and CBDB-derived death date (c. 1238). Wilkinson’s Chinese History (Chap. 30 on Sòng prose genres) treats sìliù generically; for this work specifically the standard reference is the analyses by Yú Jìngyǒu 于景祐 and others on late-Sòng parallel-prose. CBDB id for Lǐ Liú: 24849.
Translations and research
- Yáng Wèirén 楊蔚仁, “Lǐ Liú yǔ Sì-liù biāo-zhǔn yán-jiū 李劉與《四六標準》研究” — typical of the small but substantial body of mainland-Chinese MA / PhD scholarship on the work since the late 1990s.
- The Sì-liù biāo-zhǔn is the principal primary source for any treatment of late-Southern-Sòng parallel-prose in modern Chinese literary history (e.g. in Mò Lìfēng 莫礪鋒’s surveys of Sòng jì-shì wén-xué).
- For sì-liù as a genre, see Christian de Pee, The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China (SUNY 2007), which uses Sì-liù biāo-zhǔn-type manuals as primary evidence.
Other points of interest
The tíyào’s observation that “by the Sòng there was no event for which a qǐ was not used and no person who did not use a qǐ” is one of the more memorable formulations in the entire Sìkù tíyào. It captures the social-technological function of sìliù as the lubricant of the late-Sòng official class — and helps explain why the form was both so prolific and so quickly judged hollow.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū tíyào (juan 162, jíbù biéjí lèi sān).
- CBDB id 24849 (Lǐ Liú).