Línyuán wénjí 麟原文集
Unicorn-Plain Prose Collection by 王禮 (撰)
About the work
A twenty-four juǎn prose collection — divided into 前集 Qián jí 12 juǎn and 後集 Hòu jí 12 juǎn — by Wáng Lǐ 王禮 (1314–1389), a late-Yuán Yǒngxīn jǔrén and Mobile Secretariat staff officer who held to Yuán loyalty and refused Míng summons. The text is overwhelmingly prose: the Qián jí contains bēi, zhì, xíngzhuàng, xù, jì, biǎo, zhuàn, zàn, tíbá, jì, āicí; the Hòu jí contains further xù, jì, míng, xíngzhuàng, jì wén, shū, qǐ, shuō, zázhù, cí, tíshū. The collection bears two important prefaces. The Liú Dìngzhī 劉定之 preface — by a Yǒngxīn fellow-townsman who became Hànlín xuéshì under the early Míng — characterizes Wáng’s writing as bearing qíqì lùwù xiōngyì (“strange spirit and craggy bosom”) because Wáng never had the chance to luǒjiàng Zhōujīng (assist at the Zhōu capital — i.e. realize his political ambition under the rightful dynasty). The same preface contains a pointed indirect attack on Liú Jī 劉基 — describing those Yuán kēmù graduates who initially “chè bìhǎi yì cāngmín” (drew up the blue sea and shot at the dark heaven) under the Yuán but ended up “pānfù lóngfèng” (attaching to dragons and phoenixes — i.e. the new Míng dynasty) and “zìnǐ Liú Wénchéng” (modelling themselves on Liú Bóyī, i.e. Liú Jī) — only to find their qì “sīmǐn wú yú” (utterly dissipated). The Lǐ Qí 李祁 preface (from KR4d0571) celebrates Wáng’s commitment to a zhōngfèn (loyal-indignant) literary stance even under the Míng.
Tiyao
Línyuán wénjí, 24 juǎn. By Wáng Lǐ of the Yuán. Lǐ, originally styled Zǐshàng, later changed to Zǐràng, was a man of Lúlíng. In the late Yuán he served as zhàomó of the Guǎngdōng yuánshuài fǔ. With the Míng’s rise he did not serve; he was invited as kǎoguān and did not go either. The Jiāngxī tōngzhì’s “Jí’ān rénwù” entry has Wáng Zǐràng but no Wáng Lǐ — they have wrongly taken Zǐràng as a given name. Lǐ was skilled in prose, with abundant production. He once compiled the verse of his contemporaries as Tiāndì jiān jí (Note: Xiè Áo had recorded Sòng yímín verse as Tiāndì jiān jí; this borrows the name to imply allegiance). The title appears in Guō Yù’s Jìngsī jí KR4d0568; now long lost. Only this collection survives, in two sub-collections of 12 juǎn each. The front has prefaces by Lǐ Qí and Liú Dìngzhī. Dìngzhī’s preface says Lǐ “tuō gēngzáo yǐ qī jì yú yùnqù wùgǎi zhī yú; yī qūniè yǐ táo míng yú tóutóng chǐquē zhī jì” — and that his prose has qíqì lùwù of the bosom because he had not had the chance to assist at the Zhōu capital. — “There were those who, with Zǐràng, went forth from the Yuán examination ranks and served as staff officers, with the same qí-spirit chè bìhǎi yì cāngmín; later [these others] attached to dragons and phoenixes, modelled themselves on Liú Wénchéng (= Liú Jī); but having had reason for that, [now] choked in yīnyù yìmèn mènshé xīngyán, the old háoqì (heroic spirit) utterly dissolved.” The intent is to use Lǐ to attack Liú Jī; but the evaluation does not very much fit Lǐ’s own prose. Lǐ Qí’s preface calls Lǐ’s writing “ǎirán rényì zhī cí, lǐnrán zhōngfèn zhī qì, shēnqiè kěnzhì, wú bù kěrényì zhě” — which is more apt. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng forty-third (1778), fifth month. Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; head proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Línyuán wénjí is a major late-Yuán loyalist biéjí of substantial size (24 juǎn of almost pure prose) — among the largest yílǎo prose corpora in the Sìkù SKQS. Its documentary load is centered on the Liú Dìngzhī preface, which the Sìkù compilers explicitly diagnose as an indirect anti-Liú-Jī polemic — placing Wáng Lǐ’s qíqì lùwù (resistant-spirit) loyalism against the perceived qūfú (bend-and-attach) trajectory of Liú Jī, who as a Yuán jìnshì and Yuán official went on to become the Míng founding strategist. This is one of the clearest contemporary documents of mid-Míng anti-Liú-Jī feeling — a “loyalist” critique made in the 1460s-70s within an early-Míng Hànlín-establishment preface. The Lǐ Qí cross-preface (from KR4d0571 author) further documents the late-Yuán loyalist circle: Wáng Lǐ moved with Lǐ Qí (the second-rank graduate from the 1333 Yuán examination) and Hú Shānlì 胡山立 of Zhōu yuán, in retreat in the Jiāngxī hill country, all refusing Míng service. The composition window: from the early 1340s (Wáng’s young maturity) through to his death (1389; the latest preface, by Lǐ Qí in yǐsì, is anchored). The Wáng TóngjiéWáng Qiān editorial circle that brought the collection to print operated through Wáng Qiān’s metropolitan presence as a recommended-scholar.
Translations and research
- The Liú Dìng-zhī preface’s indirect attack on Liú Jī has been treated in Chinese-language studies of mid-Míng yílǎo historiography.
- John Dardess’s work on Lú-líng (Jí’ān) late-Yuán literati treats the Wáng-Lǐ-Hú circle.
- No substantial dedicated Western-language treatment located.
Other points of interest
- The Tiāndì jiān jí — Wáng Lǐ’s lost anthology of contemporary verse — would have been a major YuánMíng transition document; its title’s borrowing from Xiè Áo’s earlier Sòng-loyalist anthology is a deliberate documentary anchor.
- The collection is one of the few late-Yuán biéjí whose Míng-era prefaces (by Liú Dìngzhī, an early-Míng Hànlín establishment figure) explicitly carry an anti-Liú-Jī coding.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1220.5, p357.