宋學士文集

Sòng xuéshì wén jí 宋學士文集

The Collected Prose of Academician Sòng [Lián] by 宋濂 (撰)

About the work

Sòng xuéshì wén jí 宋學士文集 in seventy-five juǎn is the long recension of the collected works of Sòng Lián 宋濂 宋濂 (1310–1381), preserved here in the Sìbù cóngkān (SBCK) reprint of an early-Míng manuscript line. The collection is partitioned into Sòng’s principal compositional periods: the Qiánxī jí 潛溪集 (eight juǎn, his pre-Hóngwǔ work at Pǔjiāng 浦江), the Hànyuàn jí 翰苑集 (organized as a qiánjí / hòují / xùjí / biéjí tetralogy from his Hànlín years), the Cháojīng gǎo 朝京槀 (court documents), the Luánpō hòu jí 鑾坡後集 etc., and supplementary fascicles. This is a significantly fuller text than the thirty-two-juǎn WYG-Sìkù Wénxiàn jí KR4e0002 and preserves a body of Buddhist–Daoist prose and Yuán-period commissions which the Sìkù compilers had abridged out.

Prefaces

The collection opens with a long preface by Bèi Qióng 貝瓊 貝瓊 (the author of KR4e0022 / KR4e0023), dated Hóngwǔ 8, eleventh month, after the full moon (i.e. late 1375), and signed Jiāngshìláng Guózǐ zhùjiào Zuìlǐ Bèi Qióng 將仕郎國子助教檇李貝瓊. Bèi Qióng’s preface, the principal contemporary appreciation of Sòng’s prose, makes three points of interest: (1) Sòng combined the late-Yuán literary heritages of Yú Jí 虞集 (the Wénjìnggōng 文靖公) and Huáng Jìn 黃溍 (the Wénxiàn gōng 文獻公), as these in turn had combined those of Hán Yù and Ōuyáng Xiū; (2) Sòng’s prose for the founding Míng state could not avoid an inflected ceremonial register because of the Hóngwǔ emperor’s project of “displaying martial achievement and proclaiming civil virtue to show the four quarters that the Great Míng has surpassed the Three [Sage-Kings] and the Five [Emperors]”; (3) Bèi himself participated in Sòng’s Yuán shǐ compilation as a junior editor and writes with personal authority. The preface is one of the principal contemporary documents for the early-Míng literary self-image.

Abstract

This SBCK recension of Sòng Lián’s collected works is descended from a YuánMíng manuscript and reprint line that goes back to the post-mortem editing of his collection by his sons and disciples in 1381–1391. The catalog meta lifedates (no dates given) and the Wényuàngé tíyào lifedates are confirmed by CBDB: birth 1310, death by execution-in-exile 1381, age seventy-two suì. Sòng was the chief literary authority of the Hóngwǔ administration and the senior compiler of the Yuán shǐ 元史 (1370); see the 宋濂 person note for full biography and school-lineage. The seventy-five-juǎn recension preserved here contains substantially more material than the thirty-two-juǎn WYG Wénxiàn jí KR4e0002 — specifically, more of Sòng’s lay-Buddhist prose (some of which is also separately preserved at KR6q0187 護法錄), and more of his Yuán-period commissions for Mongol grandees of the kind that Jiǎng Chāo 蔣超 later attempted to recover in the supplementary Wèikè jí KR4e0003. Comparative study of the three Sòng Lián collections in KR4e (this text, the WYG, and the Wèikè jí) is the principal modern textual route to understanding the politics of post-mortem Míng literary editing.

The contents include: the imperial ceremonial zhì 制, gào 誥, cèwèn 策問, and biǎo 表; the public bēimíng 碑銘 for the great officials of the founding generation (including the Línháo Fèishì xiānyíng bēi 臨濠費氏先塋碑 and the Xú Zhīfǔ mùbēi 徐知俯墓碑 in juǎn 1); private xù and jì for friends and disciples; a substantial body of Buddhist temple records and biographies of monks; and a smaller body of shī 詩. The Hóngwǔ-era documents preserved here are an important supplementary source to the Míng shí lù 明實錄 for the institutional history of the founding decade.

Translations and research

• John W. Dardess. 1983. Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• John D. Langlois Jr (ed.). 1981. China Under Mongol Rule. Princeton UP.
• Goodrich & Fang. 1976. Dictionary of Ming Biography. Columbia UP, 1:1225–1231.
• Zhèng Lǐmín 鄭禮民. 1992. Sòng Lián yǔ Míng chū wén-tán 宋濂與明初文壇. Táiběi: Wén-shǐ-zhé chū-bǎn-shè.
• Wáng Chūnnán 王春南 & Zhào Yīng 趙映. 1992. Sòng Lián, Fāng Xiào-rú píng-zhuàn 宋濂、方孝孺評傳. Nánjīng dàxué chū-bǎn-shè.

Other points of interest

• Compare with the abridged WYG-Sìkù Wénxiàn jí KR4e0002 and the supplementary Sòng Jǐnglián wèikè jí KR4e0003.
• Sòng’s Buddhist prose, separately gathered, is in Hùfǎ lù KR6q0187.

Links

• Song Lian (Wikipedia)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).