Báiyún gǎo 白雲稿
White-Cloud Drafts by 朱右 (撰)
About the work
Báiyún gǎo 白雲稿 in five juǎn is the surviving half of the originally ten-juǎn collected works of Zhū Yòu 朱右 (1314–1376), zì Bóxián 伯賢, hào Zōuyáng zǐ 鄒陽子, native of Línhǎi 臨海 (Táizhōu 台州, Zhèjiāng). Co-compiler of the Yuán shǐ (1370) and Hóngwǔ rìlì 洪武日厯 (1373); the original editor of the Eight Masters 八先生 selection (Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán, Ōuyáng Xiū, Zēng Gǒng, Wáng Ānshí, the Three Sūs), the prototype of the later TángSòng bā dà jiā 唐宋八大家 gǔwén canon. The first half of his Báiyún gǎo in ten juǎn survives as the present collection (containing miscellaneous prose terminated by qíncāo 琴操 but no shī); the second half — including the verse — is lost.
Tiyao
Examined respectfully: Báiyún gǎo, five juǎn, by Zhū Yòu 朱右 of the Míng. Yòu, zì Bóxián 伯賢, native of Línhǎi 臨海, self-styled Zōuyáng zǐ 鄒陽子. In Yuán Zhìzhèng 21 (1361) he once travelled to court to present a Héqīng sòng 河清頌 [Hymn on the Clearing of the [Yellow] River]; not given audience, he returned home. In Hóngwǔ 3 (1370) summoned to compile the Yuán shǐ 元史; in Hóngwǔ 6 (1373) compiled the Rìlì 日厯, appointed Hànlínyuàn biānxiū 翰林院編修; in Hóngwǔ 7 (1374) compiled the Hóngwǔ zhèngyùn 洪武正韻; shortly after transferred to Jìnfǔ yòu chángshǐ 晉府右長史; died in office. The Míng shǐ Wényuàn zhuàn attaches his biography to that of Zhào Xūn 趙壎. His Báiyún gǎo was originally ten juǎn; what now circulates is only the five surviving juǎn. After the miscellaneous prose there is only qíncāo 琴操 [zither-airs] but no shī. Examining various recensions, all agree, and none can supply the missing material. Zhū Yízūn 朱彛尊 in his Jìngzhìjū shīhuà 靜志居詩話 says he once had the back five juǎn through the internal-treasury copy in passing and regrets not having copied it into a complete recension — so Zhū’s family collection too was not complete.
Yòu in prose did not strive to imitate QínHàn; he took Táng and Sòng as his models. He once selected the prose of Hán Yù 韓愈, Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元, Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽脩, Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏, Wáng Ānshí 王安石, and the Three Sūs 三蘇 into a Bā xiānshēng wénjí 八先生文集 — and the rubric “Eight Masters” 八家 took its origin from this. The pattern, rules, and source of his prose all issue from this canon, so his prose is mostly clean, restrained, and self-respecting, with no over-spreading nor pretentiously deep diction. Although he keeps strictly to rule and rarely shows transformation — meaning is fully said with the words, which is a weakness — yet compared with the wild idioms and disordered verbiage of those who gallop in self-pleasure and never know what the standards of the ancients are, there is a difference of upper and lower berth. Reverently collated on the third month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). General compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Zhū Yòu’s lifedates 1314–1376 are confirmed by CBDB and by the standard biographies (the catalog meta confirms 1314–1376). He was one of the second-tier figures of the Hóngwǔ literary administration: junior to 宋濂 and 劉基, senior to most of the Wúzhōng poets. The textual fact of greatest interest in his work is the Bā xiānshēng wén jí — Zhū Yòu’s selection of eight TángSòng prose masters (Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán, Ōuyáng Xiū, Zēng Gǒng, Wáng Ānshí, Sū Xún, Sū Shì, Sū Zhé), which the Sìkù tíyào identifies as the textual prototype of the later canonical TángSòng bā dà jiā 唐宋八大家 grouping. Most subsequent literary historiography of the late-Míng gǔwén revival traces its origin to this Hóngwǔ-era anthology. The lost back five juǎn — containing Zhū Yòu’s verse — were already lost in the late Míng; even the Zhū Yízūn family collection (the principal Qīng manuscript holding) was incomplete.
Translations and research
- Susan Cherniack. 1994. “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China”. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54/1, 5–125. Discusses the genealogy of the Táng-Sòng bā dà jiā canon-formation, including Zhū Yòu’s prototype.
- Goodrich & Fang. 1976. Dictionary of Ming Biography. Columbia UP, 1:380–381 (entry on Zhū Yòu).
- Tài-zhōu shì zhì 台州市志 modern reprints.
Other points of interest
The historical significance of Zhū Yòu is his selection of the Eight Masters of TángSòng prose, a canon-forming anthology of the late 1360s / early 1370s. The selection survives only by report; Zhū’s anthology itself is not transmitted, but the eight-figure list is what later became canonical via the MíngQīng anthology tradition culminating in Máo Kūn 茅坤’s TángSòng bā dà jiā wénchāo 唐宋八大家文鈔.
Links
- Zhu You (Wikipedia, Chinese)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).