王常宗集

Wáng Chángzōng jí 王常宗集

The Collected Works of Wáng Chángzōng by 王彝 (撰), 都穆 (編)

About the work

Wáng Chángzōng jí 王常宗集 in four juǎn (with bǔyí 補遺 in one juǎn and xù bǔyí 續補遺 in one juǎn) is the literary collection of Wáng Yí 王彝 (d. 1374), zì Chángzōng 常宗, hào Guīwěizǐ 媯蜼子, originally a Sìchuān 蜀 surnamed Chén 陳 whose father served as Education Officer of Kūnshān 崑山 under the Yuán and moved the family to Jiādìng 嘉定 (in present-day Shànghǎi). Wáng was recommended in commoner’s robes in Hóngwǔ 2 (1369) to participate in the Yuán shǐ compilation, then drawn into the Hànlínyuàn, and finally implicated together with Gāo Qǐ 高啟 (KR4e0029) in Wèi Guān 魏觀’s shàngliáng wén 上梁文 affair and executed in Hóngwǔ 7 (1374). His record is appended to Zhào Xūn 趙壎’s biography in the Míng shǐ Wényuàn zhuàn. The collection’s original title was Sānjìnzhāi gǎo 三近齋稿; it was re-edited in the Hóngzhì period (1488–1505) by Dū Mù 都穆 (1458–1525) into four juǎn (three prose, one verse). Liú Tíngzhāng 劉廷璋 and Pǔ Gǎo 浦杲 subsequently compiled the bǔyí; the xù bǔyí circulates anonymously but appears authentic on stylistic grounds.

Tiyao

The Wáng Chángzōng jí in four juǎn, Bǔyí in one juǎn, Xù bǔyí in one juǎn — by Wáng Yí of the Míng. Yí, zì Chángzōng — his ancestors were Sìchuān people, originally surnamed Chén. His father served the Yuán as Education Officer of Kūnshān 崑山 and thus moved to Jiādìng. In the early Hóngwǔ years he was summoned in commoner’s robes to compile the Yuán shǐ; on completion he was given gold and silks and sent home. Soon he was transferred into the Hànlínyuàn; on grounds of his aged mother he asked to return to care for her, and styled himself Guīwěizǐ 媯蜼子. Later in the Wèi Guān 魏觀 shàngliáng wén 上梁文 affair he was executed together with Gāo Qǐ 高啟. His record is appended in Míng shǐ Wényuàn zhuàn, in Zhào Xūn 趙壎’s biography. His collection was originally entitled Sānjìnzhāi gǎo 三近齋稿. In the Hóngzhì era Dū Mù 都穆 edited it into three juǎn of prose and one juǎn of verse. Liú Tíngzhāng 劉廷璋 and Pǔ Gǎo 浦杲 further collected and added a bǔyí in one juǎn. The manuscript copy now in circulation also contains a xù bǔyí in one juǎn; we do not know by whose hand it was collected — but examining its style and form, it resembles the rest of the collection and is unlikely to be a forgery.

Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 (note: the source reads 王士禎 — Yúyáng 漁洋) in Xiāngzǔ bǐjì 香祖筆記 says: “Wáng Zhēngshì jí, edited by shàoqīng Dū Yuánjìng 都元敬 — Yuánjìng praises his gǔwén as clear, fluent, and vigorous; some also count him as one of the Wúzhōng Sìjié 四傑, with Chángzōng substituted for Zhāng Láiyí 張來儀 (i.e. Zhāng Yǔ 張羽). Now looking at his gēxíng poems imitating Lǐ Hè 李賀 and Wēn Tíngyún 温庭筠, they fall into bad practice; the rest of his styles can hardly be called fine either. How could he stand head-to-head with Gāo [Qǐ] and Yáng [Jī]?” Examining the case: Wáng Yí’s learning came down from Mèng Mèngxún 孟夢恂 of Tiāntái, and Mèng Mèngxún’s learning came down from Jīn Lǚxiáng 金履祥 of Wùzhōu 婺州 — fundamentally a continuation of Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀’s Wénzhāng zhèngzōng 文章正宗 line. Thus his judgement is too severe, sometimes excessively so. In the collection there is a piece Wényāo 文妖 written against Yáng Wéizhēn 楊維楨, which says: “What the world calls ‘demons’ (yāo 妖) are foxes — they suddenly become women, and the men of the world are bewitched; then there are her dark-green eye-paint and ruby-white skin, her soft slender supple beguiling form — none of these she lacks. And yet — taking her as a person, she is no person; taking her as a woman, she is no woman; and she has the Dào of emptying houses — this is what the fox-demon is. In Zhèxī, those who speak of letters always say ‘Master Yáng’ — I examine his prose, with its licentious words and crooked phrases, sundering humaneness and rightness, inverting name and reality, muddling and disturbing the Dào of the former sages; while still soft and slender, supple and beguiling, dark-green and ruby-white, languidly making itself attractive — small wonder that the men of the age have been bewitched.” — His words bend the crooked beyond the straight, and the abuse damages elegance. Even Shí Jiè 石介 in his Guàishuō 怪説 attacking Yáng Yì 楊億 did not go this far. Perhaps what Shìzhēn said was also an over-zealous reaction? Yet on the whole his prose is pure and disciplined; his verse, too, retains fēnggé — though not enough to outdo Zhāng Yǔ, it would be too much to say nothing in it is worth taking. Xiāngzǔ bǐjì was completed in Shìzhēn’s late years; his rhetorical attacks are recurrent in it and cannot be taken as final judgement. Compiled and presented respectfully in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 41 (1776).

Abstract

Wáng Yí’s death date is fixed at Hóngwǔ 7 (1374) by his execution with Gāo Qǐ 高啟 in the Wèi Guān 魏觀 incident at Sūzhōu prefecture; his birth date is not securely transmitted, but the catalog meta and CBDB (id 34379: deathyear 1374, fl. 1370) leave the birth year blank — early-Yuán late date, perhaps c. 1320, has been inferred but not established. The Wèi Guān affair — in which the prefect Wèi Guān undertook to repair the Sūzhōu fǔ offices on the disputed site of Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠’s former palace, drawing Gāo Qǐ to write the shàngliáng wén and Wáng Yí to write a jì 記 — was construed at court as treasonous nostalgia for the defeated Zhāng regime; Wèi was executed, and with him Gāo Qǐ and Wáng Yí, in the autumn of 1374.

Wáng Yí’s intellectual lineage is given precisely in the Tíyào: he studied under Mèng Mèngxún 孟夢恂 of Tiāntái, who in turn was a pupil of Jīn Lǚxiáng 金履祥 — and thus the present collection stands in the line of Zhēn Déxiù 真德秀’s Wénzhāng zhèngzōng 文章正宗 tradition (i.e. a Zhūxī dàotǒng literary orthodoxy). His most-discussed piece, the polemic Wényāo 文妖 attacking Yáng Wéizhēn 楊維楨 (with whom he disagreed sharply on questions of literary taste), is in the present juǎn 1; it is the principal source for the contemporary moral-critical reaction to Yáng’s Tiěyá 鐵崖 style. Dū Mù’s editorial recension is dated by Tíyào to the Hóngzhì period, more than a century after the author’s death; the manuscript witness containing the xù bǔyí is unattributed but stylistically authentic. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, notes Wáng Yí among the Sūzhōu literary circle that was decimated by Hóngwǔ’s purges.

Translations and research

• L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Wáng Yí (vol. 2, pp. 1421–1422).
• F. W. Mote. The Poet Kao Ch’i, 1336–1374. Princeton: PUP, 1962. On the Wèi Guān affair and Wáng Yí’s role.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí).

Other points of interest

Wényāo 文妖 (juǎn 1) is one of the two principal contemporary polemics against the Tiěyá 鐵崖 style of Yáng Wéizhēn 楊維楨 and is regularly cited in the historiography of late-Yuán / early-Míng poetics; the Sìkù editors’ judgement that it represents an over-strict dàoxué reaction is itself an important moment in the Qīng evaluation of early-Míng literature.

Links

• Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
• Wang Yi (Wikipedia, Chinese)
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).