秋崖集

Qiūyá jí 秋崖集

The Autumn-Cliff Collection by 方岳 (撰)

About the work

The collected works of Fāng Yuè 方岳 (1199–1262), zì Jùshān 巨山, sobriquet Qiūyá 秋崖, of Shèxiàn 歙縣, jìnshì of Shàodìng 5 (1232). Fāng Yuè was one of the principal Sòng piánwén 駢文 stylists of his generation, paired by the Sìkù editors with Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 as the two leading parallel-prose writers of late Sòng. The collection survives in two main historical recensions — the Qiūyá xīngǎo 秋崖新稿 in 31 juàn (a Shadow-transcribed copy of a Bǎoyòu 5 [1257] print) and the Qiūyá xiǎogǎo 秋崖小稿 in 83 juàn (the Míng Jiājìng-era reprint by Fāng Yuè’s descendant Fāng Qiān 方謙) — together with the separately circulating Qiūyá xiǎojiǎn 秋崖小簡 (letters). The Sìkù editors collated all three into the present 40-juàn recension. The collection’s political interest is double: Fāng wrote bold letters from the Huái front to his patron Zhào Kuí 趙葵 reproaching him for his troops’ indiscipline, but also wrote a face-saving exculpation of Zhào Kuí’s brother Zhào Fàn 趙范 after the loss of Xiāngyáng — a cí 詞 of evasion the Sìkù editors specifically flag as discreditable.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit: Qiūyá jí in forty juàn was composed by Fāng Yuè of the Sòng. Yuè, zì Jùshān 巨山, sobriquet Qiūyá 秋崖, was a man of Shèxiàn 歙縣. He took the jìnshì in Shàodìng 5 (1232). In the Chúnyòu era he served as Adjunct (Cānyìguān 參議官) to Zhào Kuí 趙葵, was transferred to know Nánkāngjūn 南康軍; for using the lash against river-soldiers he ran afoul of the Jīng commander Jiǎ Sìdào 賈似道. Later, while prefect of Yuánzhōu 袁州, he ran afoul of Dīng Dàquán 丁大全, was impeached, and dismissed back to his home.

His collection has historically been transmitted in two recensions. One, the Qiūyá xīngǎo 秋崖新稿 in 31 juàn, is a shadow-transcription of the Sòng Bǎoyòu 5 (1257) print. The other, the Qiūyá xiǎogǎo 秋崖小稿 — 45 juàn of prose and 38 juàn of poetry — is the redaction printed by his descendant Fāng Qiān 方謙 in the Jiājìng era of the Míng. We now collate the two: the Jiājìng redaction is fuller; yet the Bǎoyòu redaction contains poems and prose pieces — several dozen in each genre — not in the Jiājìng redaction. There is also a separately-circulating Qiūyá xiǎojiǎn 秋崖小簡 (“Lesser Letters”), which has six letters not in the main collection. We have removed duplicates, combined the pieces by category, and compounded a single collection of forty juàn.

Yuè’s talent had sharp, sweeping edge. Hóng Yànzǔ 洪焱祖, in his Qiūyá xiānshēng zhuàn, says of him: “His poetry, prose, and parallel prose did not follow ancient laws or modern rules; he composed according to his own intent; sometimes the language came as from heaven.” This may be called a balanced account of both his gains and his losses. The judgment is sound: his sayings of strikingly fine flavor follow one another in his work; in the parallel-prose form he is particularly skilled; in this he may serve as elder-and-younger brother to Liú Kèzhuāng.

Within the collection there is a letter sent to Zhào Kuí while at Huáinán reproaching him for failures of military discipline: the indictment is direct and frank, and is the act of a faithful friend. But on the matter of his elder brother Zhào Fàn 趙范, whose failure as field commander led to the loss of Xiāngyáng — a matter of no small moment whose offence was no small thing — Yuè, because of his place in the Zhào family’s secretariat-tent, then composed a letter twisting toward exculpation, and included it in his collection. This cannot but be a piece of dissimulating words.

Respectfully collated, fourth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Chief-Compiler Officers Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅; Chief-Collation Officer Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Fāng Yuè (1199–1262) is one of the most idiosyncratic late-Sòng literary figures and one of the most productive: the present 40-juàn WYG redaction of the Qiūyá jí, large as it is, is itself the result of editorial collation across three sources and represents only a portion of what the Qiūyá xiǎogǎo of 83 juàn once contained. Born in Shèxiàn (modern Anhuī), he was the leading literary voice of the Huīzhōu 徽州 region in his generation and took the jìnshì in the same 1232 class as Xú Yuánjié 徐元杰 (see KR4d0351). His political career was a sequence of confrontations: as Prefect of Nánkāngjūn 南康軍 he punished river-troops in a manner that gave Jiǎ Sìdào pretext for retaliation; as Prefect of Yuánzhōu he ran afoul of the chancellor Dīng Dàquán 丁大全 and was impeached and dismissed. After 1259 he lived in retirement in his native region and died there in 1262.

The collection’s literary interest centers on Fāng Yuè’s piánwén. Hóng Yànzǔ 洪焱祖’s contemporary judgment — “neither ancient laws nor modern rules; composed according to his own intent” — captures something real: Fāng wrote parallel prose that was wildly inventive, sometimes sloppy by strict standards but at its best a model of late-Sòng compositional energy. The Sìkù editors’ pairing with Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊 is exact, though the two diverge in temperament — Liú was a strictly orthodox Daoxue presence at court, while Fāng was a provincial literatus with no central appointment.

The collection also contains a substantial body of poetry (the Bǎoyòu-edition prose-poetry ratio is roughly 1:1) that exemplifies the late-Sòng Jiānghú 江湖 tendency without belonging strictly to the Chén Qǐ 陳起 Jiānghú xiǎojí circle. The poetic style is conversational, often satirical, and includes some of the most direct late-Sòng treatments of agrarian life and rural economy.

Date discrepancy. The Kanripo catalog meta and CBDB agree on 1199–1262 for Fāng Yuè. The Míng-era homonym Fāng Yuè 方岳 (1442– , CBDB 199364) is unrelated. The dating bracket adopted here for the composition window (1232–1262) covers Fāng Yuè’s productive years from jìnshì to death.

The 1233–34 loss of Xiāngyáng under Zhào Fàn’s command is one of the principal military catastrophes leading toward the Sòng-Mongol confrontation; the Sìkù editors’ note that Fāng Yuè’s exculpatory letter to the Zhào family is a kuìcí 愧詞 (“piece of shameful words”) is the more pointed because the loss of Xiāngyáng would, two generations later, be the proximate cause of the Sòng’s collapse.

Translations and research

• Jonathan Pease, “Fang Yue and the Jiānghú Poets,” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 26 (1996), survey article.
• Wāng Zhèngzhāng 汪正章, “Fāng Yuè Qiūyá jí yánjiū” 方岳《秋崖集》研究, PhD thesis, Sūzhōu dàxué, 2008 — the standard modern study.
• Zhōu Jīncài 周金才 (ed.), Fāng Yuè jí jiào-zhù 方岳集校注 (Hángzhōu: Zhèjiāng gǔjí, 2008) — the modern critical edition.
• Xú Yǒngmíng 徐永明, Sòng-dài Huīzhōu wén-rén yánjiū 宋代徽州文人研究 (Hángzhōu: Zhèjiāng dàxué, 2010), situates Fāng in the Huīzhōu regional literary culture.
• Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, Sōshi gaisetsu 宋詩概說 (Iwanami, 1962, translated as An Introduction to Sung Poetry, Harvard 1967), briefly discusses Fāng Yuè among late-Sòng provincial poets.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù tiyao’s explicit moral censure of Fāng Yuè’s exculpation of Zhào Fàn is unusually pointed: the Sìkù editors did not normally moralize on the politics of their authors at this length. The note is consistent with the broader Sìkù judgment of the late Sòng, in which the editors hold the southern court collectively responsible for failing to defend the frontiers — a position that ultimately serves the Qīng-dynastic narrative of providential supersession.

The two-recension transmission history of the Qiūyá jí — Bǎoyòu 1257 Sòng print versus Jiājìng Míng reprint — is also a textbook case of the kind of textual cross-checking the Sìkù method was meant to handle: each contains material missing from the other, and the 40-juàn WYG redaction is a collated text rather than a simple reproduction of either.

Links

• WYG SKQS V1182.2, p131.
• CBDB person 21180 (Fāng Yuè)
• Wikidata