Àoxuān yíngǎo 傲軒吟稿
Chanting Drafts from the Proud Studio by 胡天游 (撰)
About the work
A single-juǎn poetry collection by Hú Tiānyóu 胡天游 of Yuèzhōu Píngjiāng. Hú lived through the late-Yuán disorder, did not serve, and died before the Míng founding. His native-place biographer Ài Kē 艾科 claims he could compose poetry from age seven and was reckoned in the same first rank as Yú Bóshēng 虞集 and Zhào Zǐáng 趙孟頫 in his day. The tíyào compilers find this overstated: Hú’s manner is principally vigorous and stirring, sometimes verging on coarse. Yet within the larger lamentational mode his work preserves a zhōnghòu “loyal-warm” residue of the older shīrén sensibility, hoping for peace from within a collapsing age. The collection’s surviving compositions are reportedly only about a tenth of his original output, the rest destroyed in the warfare of the late Yuán.
Tiyao
Àoxuān yíngǎo, 1 juǎn. By Hú Tiānyóu of the Yuán. Tiānyóu’s name was Chénglóng 乘龍, but he used his style-name in life; he styled himself Sōngzhú zhǔrén and again Àoxuān (“Proud Studio”). He was a man of Yuèzhōu Píngjiāng. In the disorders of the late Yuán he lived in retirement and did not serve. His fellow-townsman Ài Kē wrote his zhuàn, saying: “Had Heaven granted him the years and he had encountered the Míng Tàizǔ, he would certainly have been a Liú Jī or a Sòng Lián.” But he died at the end of the Shùndì reign. His collection, of what survived the fires of war, is only about a tenth. The zhuàn records that at seven he could already compose poetry with the spirit of a maker, was famed throughout his generation, and would have lost nothing in comparison with Bóshēng (Yú Jí) or Zǐáng (Zhào Mèngfǔ). Looking at his actual work, it is largely sorrowful-and-vigorous, sharply impassioned, but suffers some coarseness. Not only is it insufficient to stand against Yú Jí; it would not match Zhào Mèngfǔ. The zhuàn’s claims are excessive. Nonetheless, within his long-form lyric outpourings he is able to “issue from feeling and check it at lǐyì”; placed in a collapsing time he yet earnestly longs for peace — he preserves the zhōnghòu (loyal-warm) bequest of the older poet. Within the late-Yuán generation he is, at least, not unworthy to be called an author. In the Mò shàng huā shī small-preface he misidentifies Qián Liú as Liáng Yuándì, which is a slip; also, Yǔ Xìn’s “guìhuá” line he misreads after the Hànshū, and Wáng Wéi’s “chuíyáng” line he misglosses after the Zhuāngzǐ. Taking the substantive bulk, the small flaws are negligible — when assessing ancient writers one should not look only at minute textual snags. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng forty-sixth (1781), eleventh month. Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; head proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Àoxuān yíngǎo is the sole surviving residue of the literary output of Hú Tiānyóu, a Húnán literatus who refused both Yuán and Míng service. The tíyào fact-checks the inflated claims of his hometown biographer Ài Kē but acknowledges the residual moral force of his verse. Composition window: from c. 1330 (Hú’s young maturity, if the seven-year-old composing prodigy claim has any reality) to his death at the end of the Shùndì reign (≤1368). The biographical evidence — survival of only roughly 10 % of his output — implies the present yíngǎo is a cánběn (mutilated remainder). Hú is one of the more substantively voiced of the Húnán late-Yuán yìmín (refugee-loyalist) cohort, though his attainment is not at the first rank of his generation. The tíyào points out several textual errors in his prefaces, all errors of memorial citation rather than substance.
Translations and research
- No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages.
Other points of interest
There is a more famous Qīng poet of the same name — Hú Tiānyóu 胡天游 (1696–1758) of Shānyīn — who is unrelated; see person note for the disambiguation.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1216.9, p725.