後村集

Hòucūn jí 後村集

Collected Works of Hòucūn by 劉克莊 (撰)

About the work

The Sìkù Wényuāngé recension of the literary collection of Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 (1187–1269) of Pútián 莆田, one of the most prolific and influential late-Sòng poets, prose writers, and critics. The collection runs to fifty juàn and represents a fuller transmission than the smaller Míng fāngběn 坊本 (16 juàn of poetry, 2 juàn each of shīhuà and shīyú; Máo Jìn’s Jīndài bìshū adds 2 juàn of colophons). The companion Hòucūn xiānsheng dàquán jí 後村先生大全集 in 196 juàn (the SBCK Sìbù cóngkān edition) preserves a yet larger transmission, but the present WYG entry is the standard Qīng imperial recension. Liú is the dominant figure of the late-Sòng Jiānghú shīpài 江湖詩派, a major critic (his Hòucūn shīhuà 後村詩話 is canonical), and one of the chief stylists of the late Southern Sòng.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Hòucūn jí, in fifty juàn, was composed by Liú Kèzhuāng of the Sòng. Kèzhuāng, zì Qiánfū 潛夫, was a man of Pútián. He entered office through yīn (hereditary privilege), rising to Direct Academician of the Lóngtúgé 龍圖閣直學士, with posthumous name Wéndìng 文定. Kèzhuāng was at first the disciple of Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀, but his late integrity did not hold: at the age of eighty he lost his standing by submitting to Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 in Cánwěijí 蠶尾集 wrote a postface to this collection, praising Liú’s criticisms of Yáng Xióng 揚雄 for composing the Jù Qín měi Xīn 劇秦美新, of the lament for Empress Dowager Yuán composed for the ministers’ group memorial by Cài Yōng 蔡邕, and of Ruǎn Jí’s 阮籍 late composition of the Quànjìnbiǎo 勸進表 — all expressed with severe diction and upright moral force. Yet Liú’s “Hè Jiǎxiàng qǐ” 賀賈相啓, his “Hè Jiǎ Tàishī fùxiàng qǐ”, and his “Zài hè píngzhāng qǐ” — all addressed to Jiǎ Sìdào — are filled with flattering, fawning phrases, lavishly piled chapter on chapter, repeating the very mistakes of Yáng Xióng and Cài Yōng, and he did not realize it himself.

We now inspect this collection: the various passages cited by Wáng Shìzhēn match one-by-one. Compared to Lù Yóu’s 陸游 two Nányuán prefaces — which at least preserve a tone of admonition — Liú’s case is even worse. This shows that his engagement with neo-Confucian jiǎngxué was merely a borrowed banner for reputation; one need not, on Zhēn Déxiù’s account, manufacture excuses for him.

His poetic faction is close to Yáng Wànlǐ’s 楊萬里. In the main, his diction errs toward vulgarity and his meaning is too plain on the surface. For this reason Fāng Huí 方回, in his Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ 瀛奎律髓, was extremely dissatisfied with him. Wáng Shìzhēn in Chíběi ǒután 池北偶談 also noted that both Liú’s poetry and his parallel prose lean heavily on contemporary Sòng-dynasty allusions — for which he chastises him together with Wáng Yìshān’s 王義山 Jiācūn jí. Even so, his fresh and original passages cannot be entirely dismissed. The Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ records his “Ten Old Men” poems, which are markedly vulgar in form; in the present Nányuè dìèrgǎo only three survive, with seven lost — so the collection has clearly already undergone editorial sifting and is not merely a perfunctory preservation.

His prose style is clean and elegant, distinctly better than his verse. His colophons in particular he holds independently. In sum, at the end of the Southern Sòng the Jiānghú faction was at its height: in poetry he drifted with the fashion, in prose he had not yet abandoned the older standard. The booksellers’ edition prints sixteen juàn of poetry, two juàn each of shīhuà and shīyú; Máo Jìn 毛晉 in Jīndài bìshū 津逮秘書 added two juàn of colophons, with the rest absent. The present is a full hand-copied recension, with a Chúnyòu 9 (1249) preface by Lín Xīyì 林希逸, exceeding the booksellers’ edition by thirty juàn of prose and a larger shīhuà with a hòují 後集 of two juàn. It seems still to be a fair-copy from the old block-printed edition.

Abstract

Liú Kèzhuāng was the dominant late-Sòng Jiānghú poet, a senior literatus from Pútián whose career spans the Jiātài, Bǎoyòu, and Xiánchún reigns; he reached the rank of Lóngtúgé zhíxuéshì and was posthumously honored as Wéndìng 文定. His writings — over 4,500 surviving poems plus 2,000-odd prose pieces, cí lyrics, and shīhuà — are the largest single literary corpus from the late Sòng. The WYG Hòucūn jí in fifty juàn is one of several distinct recensions: the larger Hòucūn xiānsheng dàquán jí 後村先生大全集 in 196 juàn (preserved in the SBCK and at KR4d0340-related Sòng transmissions) is the fullest. The collection’s dating bracket here reflects Liú’s writing career (c. 1210 to his death in 1269); the date of editorial compilation is c. 1249 (Lín Xīyì’s preface) for the larger transmission. The Sìkù tiyao’s harsh moral verdict on Liú’s late ingratiation of Jiǎ Sìdào is now usually qualified in modern scholarship as reflecting the political complexity of an octogenarian at court rather than character failure simpliciter.

Translations and research

• Cí-hè 程章燦, Liú Kèzhuāng nián-pǔ 劉克莊年譜 (Guìlín: Guǎngxī shīfàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 1993) — the standard chronological biography.
• Wáng Míngjiàn 王明見, Liú Kèzhuāng yǔ Zhōngguó shīxué lǐlùn de jiànshè 劉克莊與中國詩學理論的建設 (Chéngdū: Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 2004).
• Hóu Tǐjiàn 侯體健, Liú Kèzhuāng de wénxué shìjiè 劉克莊的文學世界 (Shànghǎi: Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2013) — the most recent monograph.
• Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u Imagery in Liu K’o-chuang’s Hou-ts’un Tz’u,” in Voices of the Song Lyric in China, ed. Pauline Yu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
• Liú Kèzhuāng (Wáng Xiūméi 王秀梅 punctuated ed.), Hòucūn xiānsheng dàquán jí 後村先生大全集 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2008) — the modern critical edition.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù editors’ rare double-edged tiyao — moral condemnation paired with substantive literary praise — is one of the most candid evaluations in the biéjí section of the Tíyào and is repeatedly cited in modern critical literature on the Jiānghú school. Liú Kèzhuāng’s Hòucūn shīhuà (preserved in the larger 196-juàn recension; cf. KR4j) is one of the longest and most cited shīhuà of the Sòng dynasty.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1180.1, p1.
• CBDB person 7665 (Liú Kèzhuāng)
• Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào
• Wikidata