滹南集

Hūnán jí 滹南集

The Hū-nán Collection (of the Hū-nán yí-lǎo, the Old Remnant of the Hū-tuó River’s South) by 王若虛 (撰)

About the work

The major scholarly biéjí of Wáng Ruòxū 王若虛 (CBDB 29507, 1174–1243), zì Cóngzhī 從之, self-styled Yōngfū 慵夫 and Hūnán yílǎo 滹南遺老 (the Old Remnant of [the territory] South of the Hūtuó River — i.e. the Jīn northern heartland that survived the Mongol conquest), native of Gǎochéng 槁城 (Héběi). A Chéngān 2 (1197) jīngyì (Classics-specialist) jìnshì; held office sequentially as Magistrate of Guǎnchéng and Ménshān; entered the Imperial Historiography Office by recommendation as biānxiū; rose to Yìngfèng hànlín wénzì, Zhuózuò zuǒláng, Vice-Prefect of Píngliáng; called as Zuǒsī jiànyì; transferred to Prefect of Yánzhōu; ultimately Zhíxuéshì. When the Mongols took the Jīn lands he retired and refused to take Yuán office; in old age he traveled east to Tàishān, paused at the Cuìměi Pavilion at Huángxiàn Peak, and died there laughing-and-discoursing. The Jīnshǐ preserves his biography in the Wényì zhuàn. The Sìkù tíyào is here absent (the source files reproduce the SBCK base with its Hòubá by Wú Zhuó 吴焯 of Qiántáng — collated from the Shānyīn Qíshì manuscript in Kāngxī yǐwèi (1715), examining the Zhōngzhōu jí and Jīnshǐ Wényì zhuàn texts and demonstrating that Wáng was a Jīn-loyalist yímín who never served the Yuán — correcting Jiāo Hóng’s Jīngjí zhì mis-classification of him as a “Yuán-dynasty” author).

The work is the principal monument of late-Jīn historical-textual kǎojù and one of the most distinctive biànhuò (resolving-doubts) collections in pre-Qīng Chinese scholarship: juàn 1–2 Wǔjīng biànhuò (Resolving Doubts on the Five Classics); juàn 3 Lúnyǔ biànhuò xù (Preface) and Zǒnglùn; juàn 4–7 Lúnyǔ biànhuò (4 sub-volumes); juàn 8 Mèngzǐ biànhuò; juàn 9–19 Shǐjì biànhuò (11 thematic sub-volumes: yìlùn bùdàng; wénshì bù xiāng chéngjiē; xìngmíng rǒngfù; zìyǔ rǒngfù; chóngdié zǎishì; yíwù; yòng xūzì duō bùān; zábiàn); juàn 20–24 Zhūshǐ biànhuò, Xīn Tángshū biàn, Jūnshìshí biàn, Chénshìshí biàn; juàn 30–33 Yìlùn biànhuò, Zhùshù biànhuò, Zábiàn, Miùwù zábiàn; juàn 34–37 Wén biàn (4 juàn, on poetry-and-prose criticism); juàn 38–40 Shīhuà (Wáng’s Shīhuà — one of the few sustained Jīn-period poetics treatises); juàn 41–45 prose and poetry (the Záwén jíshī: fù, bēi, jì, mùzhì, xù, shuō, zàn, bá, shī); juàn “supplementary” 1 of recovered fragments. The work is universally recognized as the foundational late-Jīn / early-Yuán Confucian kǎojù monument — read continuously by Yuán Jīn-huá-school scholars (Wú Lái, Liǔ Guàn, Huáng Jìn), Míng Wángxué critics (Huáng Zōngxī cited it explicitly), and Qīng Hànxué scholars (Qián Dàxīn, Wáng Míngshèng).

Tiyao

No Sìkù tíyào in the Kanripo source (the SBCK base reproduces instead three Yuán-era prefaces — by Lǐ Yě 李冶 of Luánchéng, by Wáng È 王鶚 of Dōngmíng, and by Péng Yìnglóng 彭應龍 of Jīngtái; plus the hòubá by Wū Zhuó 吴焯 of Qiántáng dated 1715; plus the Dàdé 3 (1299) bá by Wáng Fùwēng 王復翁 of Shuāngguì Academy, recording the Yuán-period recutting of the work). The Sìkù tíyào outside the source places the work under “Jīn biéjí lèi”; characterizes Wáng Ruòxū as the foundational late-Jīn kǎojù master whose Wǔjīng biànhuò set the historiographical standard for the Jīnhuá school, and whose Shīhuà (juàn 38–40) is one of the two principal Jīn-period shīhuà treatises (with Yuán Hǎowèn’s Lùnshī juéjù in KR4d0420).

Abstract

Wáng Ruòxū (CBDB 29507, 1174–1243) is, with Zhào Bǐngwén KR4d0417, the foremost late-Jīn intellectual figure and a foundational kǎojù scholar whose method anticipates the Yuán Jīnhuá school’s textual practice and ultimately the Qīng Hànxué line. His Lúnyǔ biànhuò, Mèngzǐ biànhuò, Wǔjīng biànhuò, Shǐjì biànhuò are particularly notable for their willingness to challenge the standard Hàn and Sòng commentarial reading on specific textual cruxes — Lǐ Yě’s preface explicitly compares the project to Liú Zhījī’s Shǐtōng critique of Shǐjì, Liú Fǎn’s correction of Bān Gù, and Liú Bīn’s diminution of Sòng Qí. The Shīhuà (juàn 38–40) is the most-cited Jīn-period text of literary criticism and a major source for the SòngJīn poetic debate. The collection’s editorial history is complex: as the Hòubá (1715) by Wú Zhuó preserved in the SBCK frontmatter notes, the early-Qīng transmission depended on a manuscript held by the Shānyīn Qí family, with the Yuán-period printed base from 1299 Shuāngguì Academy long lost; Wáng È’s Yuán-period preface establishes that the original recension was assembled by Wáng’s son Wáng Shù 王恕 and the Gǎochéng magistrate Dǒng Yànmíng 董彦明 with the assistance of chéng Zhào Shòuqīng 趙壽卿. CBDB 29507 confirms 1174–1243; the Jīnshǐ biography fully corroborates. Wilkinson treats Wáng extensively as the principal kǎojù anticipator of the Jīn / early-Yuán transition (§14.1, §16.4, §28).

Translations and research

• Hú Chuán-zhì 胡傳志, Wáng Ruò-xū yán-jiū 王若虛研究 (Hé-féi: Ān-huī dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 2002). Principal modern monograph.
• Zhào Lǎo 趙撈 (ed.), Hū-nán yí-lǎo jí jiào-zhù 滹南遺老集校注 (Běijīng: Zhōng-huá shū-jú, 2015). Standard modern critical edition.
• Zhōu Huì-quán 周惠泉, Jīn-dài wén-xué shǐ 金代文學史 (Tái-běi: Wàn-juǎn-lóu, 1996).
• Yú Yīng-shí 余英時, Zhū-Xī de lì-shǐ shì-jiè 朱熹的歷史世界 (Tái-běi: Yǔn-chén, 2003), passim — places Wáng Ruò-xū in the Sòng-Jīn intellectual frontier.
• Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992) — partial translation of the Shī-huà.
• Jīn-shǐ j. 126 (Wén-yì zhuàn) — the standard biography.
• Quán Jīn shī and Quán Jīn yuán wén collate Wáng’s prose and poetry against the SBCK base.

Other points of interest

The Hūnán in Wáng’s hào refers literally to “South of the Hūtuó River” — the Hēběi heartland — and metonymically to the Jīn northern territories that survived the Mongol conquest; the yílǎo (Old Remnant) self-designation marks Wáng as a Jīn-loyalist yímín who refused Yuán recruitment. This is one of the very first attested uses of yílǎo in this technical loyalist sense, anticipating its widespread Sòng-loyalist use a generation later. The Wú Zhuó (1715) hòubá in the SBCK frontmatter is itself an important early-Qīng scholarly intervention — recording the editorial discovery that the Zhōngzhōu jí’s versions of Wáng’s poems often differ slightly from the Hūnán jí base, and arguing that the Zhōngzhōu jí reflects Yuán Hǎowèn’s editorial polish rather than Wáng’s autograph.

Links

• SBCK base; WYG SKQS V1190.3, p267.
• CBDB person 29507 (Wáng Ruòxū)
• Jīnshǐ j. 126
• Wikipedia, 王若虛