Zhèxuān jí 柘軒集
Collection from the Mulberry Studio by 凌雲翰 (撰)
About the work
Zhèxuān jí 柘軒集 in five juǎn is the collected verse and prose of Líng Yúnhàn 凌雲翰 (zì Yànchōng 彥翀, c. 1323 – c. 1395), native of Qiántáng 錢塘 (Hángzhōu). Yuán xiāngshì graduate of Zhìzhèng 19 (1359); appointed shānzhǎng of the Shàoxīng Lántíng shūyuàn 紹興蘭亭書院 but did not take up the post. In Hóngwǔ 14 (xīnyǒu 辛酉, 1381) recommended on grounds of talent and appointed Sìchuān Chéngdū jiàoshòu 四川成都教授 (Instructor of Chéngdū prefecture), in which post he died. His verse and miscellaneous prose were preserved in the family; in the Yǒnglè era (1403–1424) his grandson first compiled them into the present five-juǎn collection.
Tiyao
Examined respectfully: Zhèxuān jí, five juǎn, by Líng Yúnhàn of the Míng. Yúnhàn, zì Yànchōng 彥翀, native of Qiántáng. Passed the Zhèjiāng xiāngshì in Yuán Zhìzhèng 19 (1359); appointed Shàoxīng Lántíng shūyuàn shānzhǎng but did not take office. In Hóngwǔ xīnyǒu (1381) summoned on a recommendation and appointed Sìchuān Chéngdū jiàoshòu; died in office. His poetry, prose, and miscellaneous compositions were stored in his family; in the Yǒnglè era (1403–1424) his grandson first compiled them, arranging them into the present five juǎn.
Zhū Yízūn 朱彛尊’s Míng shī zōng 明詩綜 shīhuà says that Yúnhàn studied under Chén Zhòngzhòng 陳衆仲 [i.e. Chén Lǚ 陳旅, Yuán Hànlín dàizhì], and so his poetry was lush without being ostentatious, free in its range without leaving the path. Examining the Xuāndé-era preface by Wáng Yǔ 王羽: it says that Chén Zhòngzhòng of Pǔtián 莆田, the Tíjǔ Zhèjiānglù rúzhèng 提舉浙路儒政, struck a name in literature in the Southeast, and that Chéng Yǐwén 程以文 was his near-equal in repute; that Zhèxuān [Líng Yúnhàn] swept the threshold of Chéng and received his teaching there. His co-villager Xià Jié 夏節, in the xíngshù he composed for Yúnhàn, also says that in his youth Yúnhàn travelled to the gate of Chéng Yǐwén at Yīnán 黟南. From this it is clear that the teacher Yúnhàn served was Chéng Yǐwén and not Chén Lǚ, against the various sources Zhū Yízūn assembled. Zhū’s account must have failed of verification. But his judgement of Yúnhàn’s verse — that his wǔyán such as the Péijì 陪祭 [piece], and his qīyán such as the Guǐ liè 鬼獵 [piece], are fluent in talent-and-feeling and untrammelable, with a power that can lift the banner of [Liú Jī’s] Yùlí and clamber over the ramparts of [Gāo Qǐ’s] Qīngqiū — is judicious commentary on Yúnhàn’s poetry, not over-praised in the eyes of the discerning. Reverently collated on the eleventh month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780). General compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Líng Yúnhàn’s lifedates are not recorded in the standard biographies. He was a Yuán xiāngshì of 1359 and a Hóngwǔ-era jiàoshòu of Chéngdū appointed in 1381 (Hóngwǔ 14); if the conventional minimum of about 25 suì for the Yuán xiāngshì is assumed, he was born no later than 1334; the Yǒng-lè-era grandson-compiler implies he died not long after the Hóngwǔ–Jiànwén transition, conventionally c. 1395. The Sìkù tíyào explicitly corrects the Zhū Yízūn identification of Líng’s teacher (Chén Lǚ 陳旅, zì Zhòngzhòng 衆仲) on the strength of the Xuān-dé-era preface by Wáng Yǔ and the xíngshù by Líng’s co-villager Xià Jié, both of which identify the actual teacher as Chéng Yǐwén 程以文 (the late-Yuán Jīn-huá-school scholar at Yīnán 黟南 in Huīzhōu). This is a useful early-Qīng correction of a Míng-era misattribution.
The collection’s content is principally verse, organized by genre: fù, wǔyán, qīyán, juéjù, cí, with a small body of jì, xù, bēimíng etc. The Yǒnglè preface dates the compilation to Yǒnglè 3 (1405). Líng’s reputation in the Sìkù-era canon was rising precisely because of the Sìkù re-evaluation: the Sìkù tíyào positions him as a poet of the WúYuè transitional generation, sufficient to clamber over the ramparts of Liú Jī and Gāo Qǐ — the principal early-Míng poets. Modern scholarship has not greatly developed this evaluation.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located beyond the Sìkù tíyào itself, the Yǒng-lè-era prefaces by Wáng Yǔ and Lín Huán preserved in the collection, and brief notices in Zhèjiāng tōng-zhì 浙江通志.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s correction of the teacher-identification (Chéng Yǐwén rather than Chén Lǚ) illustrates the Sìkù editors’ use of locally circulated xíngshù and prefaces to override the consensus of the major MíngQīng anthologies — a small but characteristic gesture of Qiánlóng-era critical scholarship.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).