Lěngránzhāi shījí 泠然齋詩集
Poetry Collection of the Studio of Cool Composure by 蘇泂 (撰)
About the work
A reconstituted Southern Sòng biéjí (separate collection) of eight juàn, containing roughly 850 poems by Sū Jiǒng 蘇泂 (zì Zhàosǒu 召叟), a poet associated with the late Sòng Jiānghú shīpài 江湖詩派 circle. The original twenty-juàn collection recorded in Chén Zhènsūn’s 陳振孫 Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 was lost; the present recension was reassembled by the Sìkù editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典. The text preserves Sū’s most celebrated cycle, Jīnlíng záyǒng 金陵雜詠 (some two hundred poems on Nánjīng topography and history).
Tiyao
We respectfully submit: Lěngránzhāi jí, in eight juàn, was composed by Sū Jiǒng of the Sòng. Jiǒng, zì Zhàosǒu 召叟, was a man of Shānyīn 山陰 and a fourth-generation descendant of the Right Vice-Director [Sū] Sòng 蘇頌. The Sòngshǐ “Biography of Sū Sòng” does not enumerate his descendants in detail, and so Jiǒng’s beginning and end cannot be ascertained. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records Jiǒng’s Lěngránzhāi jí in twenty juàn, but this has long been lost; only the Sòng anonymous Shījiā dǐngluán 詩家鼎臠 preserved two of his poems. The present recension is gathered and arranged from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn — in all, over eight hundred and fifty poems, redivided into eight juàn.
From references within the poems themselves, cross-collated, we know that Jiǒng in his youth followed his grandfather on official travels into Shǔ 蜀, and as he grew up he drifted, indigent, through the four quarters; he twice entered the Jiànkāng 建康 mufu. His “Writing My Thoughts” poems include the line, “Yesterday I received my honored elder’s commission, [my name] placed in the chancellor’s audit list — but my dull talent cannot draw the ten-team chariot; perhaps the firefly’s flame may yet continue the dying evening.” Thus he once gained office through recommendation but in the end did not flourish, and grew old without advancement. Those with whom he exchanged verses included Xīn Qìjí 辛棄疾, Liú Guò 劉過, Wáng Nán 王柟, Pān Chēng 潘檉, Zhào Shīxiù 趙師秀, Zhōu Wénpú 周文璞, Jiāng Kuí 姜夔, Gě Tiānmín 葛天民 and others — all men of note in their day.
The collection further contains his poem “Sending Off Lù Yóu 陸游 on His Commission to Compile the Dynastic History,” with the lines, “The disciple esteems the master from his hair-knot age until now; the writings spring from boyhood admiration, the conduct follows the rule of Xiāo Guī 蕭規.” Thus Jiǒng originally studied under Lù Yóu, and the lineage of his prosody has a clear source. His own works are all able to carve, polish, and refine themselves into fresh originality — and within the Jiānghú poetic faction he may be called zhuórán tèchū 卓然特出 (outstandingly distinct). His Jīnlíng záyǒng runs to as many as two hundred pieces, and is especially inexhaustible in its strangeness. Zhōu Wénpú composed a postface comparing him to Liú Yǔxī 劉禹錫, Dù Mù 杜牧, and Wáng Ānshí 王安石 — praise that may be slightly excessive, but the wealth of his force is genuinely a fine flowering of its day.
It is regrettable that the original collection was so long buried that even the compilers of Sòng-poetry compendia could no longer state his surname. His elegy on Jiāng Kuí, cited by Lù Yǒurén 陸友仁 of the Yuán in Yànběi zázhì 硯北雜志, was assigned there to one “Sū Shí” 蘇石; in recent times Lì È 厲鶚, compiling Sòngshī jìshì 宋詩紀事, accordingly split Sū Jiǒng and Sū Shí into two people. We now find the very poem in Jiǒng’s collection: it is certain that the original book was inscribed “Sū Zhàosǒu”, and the copyist dropped the character sǒu 叟 and miscopied zhào 召 as shí 石, so that error was perpetuated in tradition with no means of correction. Were it not that the collected book has once again come to light, there would have been no way to amend that distortion. Its return from obscurity to renown may also be called Jiǒng’s great good fortune.
Respectfully collated, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief-Compiler Officers (ministers) Jì Dí 紀的 [a typographical slip for 紀昀], Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer (minister) Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Sū Jiǒng’s Lěngránzhāi shījí is a textbook case of a late-Sòng Jiānghú collection rescued from oblivion by the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. The original twenty-juàn version recorded by Chén Zhènsūn was already lost in the late Sòng / Yuán transition, and the dispersal of the Sū family library produced the homonymic confusion between “Sū Jiǒng” and “Sū Shí” that misled Lì È in the Qīng. Floruit is established by Sū’s correspondence with figures whose dates are securely known — Lù Yóu (1125–1210), Xīn Qìjí (1140–1207), Jiāng Kuí (c. 1155–1221), Zhào Shīxiù (1170–1219), and Liú Guò (1154–1206) — placing the bulk of composition in the QìngyuánJiādìng era (c. 1195–1224). The Jīnlíng záyǒng cycle is a major source for the poetic memorialization of Nánjīng (Jiànkāng) in the Southern Sòng and is repeatedly cited in later topographic and gazetteer literature. Sū’s stylistic affiliation with the late-Táng-influenced Yǒngjiā sìlíng 永嘉四靈 (Zhào Shīxiù et al.) and Lù Yóu’s late style is evident throughout; the catalog meta lists him only as a Sòng writer without dates, and that placement is followed here.
Translations and research
- Zhāng Hóngshēng 張宏生, Jiānghú shī-pài yán-jiū 江湖詩派研究 (Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1995) — the standard monograph on the school to which Sū Jiǒng belongs; discusses Lěngrán-zhāi jí in detail.
- Ōuyáng Guāngzōng 歐陽光宗 et al., entries on Sū Jiǒng in Quán Sòng shī 全宋詩 (Běijīng dàxué, 1991–98), volumes 53–54, with bibliographic notes.
- Lì È 厲鶚 (Qīng), Sòng-shī jì-shì 宋詩紀事, juàn 71, on Sū Jiǒng (now correctable in light of the Sì-kù editors’ demonstration that “Sū Shí” is a textual ghost).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ “Sū Shí is a ghost” argument is a small but instructive case of bibliographic correction by the editing team and is repeatedly cited in modern textual-critical literature on the Jiānghú corpus.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1179.3, p69.
- CBDB person 11646