Lánshān jí 藍山集
The Blue-Mountain Collection by 藍仁 (撰)
About the work
Lánshān jí 藍山集 in six juǎn is the verse collection of Lán Rén 藍仁, zì Jìngzhī 靜之, native of Chóngān 崇安 (Fújiàn). With his younger brother Lán Zhì 藍智 (KR4e0037) Lán Rén formed the so-called Èr Lán 二藍 — the founding generation of the Mǐnzhōng shīpài 閩中詩派 (Fújiàn Poetry School) that would dominate Hóngwǔ–Yǒng-lè-era Fújiàn verse and culminate in the so-called Shízǐ 十子. As young men the brothers studied with Dù Běn 杜本 in his retreat at Wǔyíshān 武夷山, where they received the Sìmíng Rèn Sōngqīng 四明任松卿 shīfǎ (poetic method) — a Yuán-period revival of Táng poetic models. They abandoned the kējǔ examinations to devote themselves to verse. Lán Rén was later appointed Wǔyí shūyuàn shānzhǎng 武夷書院山長 and Shàowǔ wèi 邵武尉 (which he declined). At the Míng founding he was forcibly removed with his family to Línháo 臨濠 (the Hóngwǔ ancestral seat). The collection was originally in six juǎn; lost in the MíngQīng transition save for Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊’s late access. The Sìkù editors reconstructed it from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典, recovering over five hundred poems and restoring the six-juǎn division.
Tiyao
The Lánshān jí in six juǎn — by Lán Rén of the Míng. Rén, zì Jìngzhī, native of Chóngān. His record is appended in Míng shǐ Wényuàn zhuàn to Táo Zōngyí 陶宗儀’s biography. It says that at the end of Yuán Dù Běn 杜本 retired in seclusion at Wǔyíshān; Rén with his younger brother [Lán] Zhì went to study under him; he transmitted to them the shīfǎ of Rèn Sōngqīng 任松卿 of Sìmíng; from then on they declined the kējǔ and devoted themselves single-mindedly to verse. Later he was appointed Wǔyí shūyuàn shānzhǎng, promoted to Shàowǔ wèi, but did not take up the post. It further says: at the Míng founding’s incorporation [of WúYuè], following the precedent he was transferred to Línháo — so he must once have served Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠. Moreover, in the collection there is a verse Jiǎyín zhòngdōng shèguān shī 甲寅仲冬攝官詩, and jiǎyín corresponds to Hóngwǔ 7 (1374); so after his release [from Línháo] he also once served in office — but the start and end of this service cannot be examined. Rén’s verse models the Táng register but at times drifts into mid-Táng and late-Táng. Jiǎng Yì 蔣易, in his preface to this collection, called him “calm and elegant, words and meaning blending sweetly, language without carving, qì without rouge — issuing from the rightness of nature and feeling, with the air of peace; one regrets that he is not numbered among the Chéngmíng 承明 authors but rather drifts among the village lanes — looking askance at woods and streams, with the bosom of a dáshì 達士 and not the lament of a sāorén 騷人; although he had encountered repeated tribulations, his heart remained at ease. In sum his works are all zhìshì zhī yīn — sounds of a well-ordered age.” Although the praise is somewhat excessive, it is also close to truth. The Mǐnzhōng shīpài 閩中詩派 — the whole Míng dynasty took the Shízǐ 十子 as their ancestors and did not realise that the Lán brothers had opened the way for them; this obliterates the original founding achievement. That is not a fair judgement. The Míngshǐ Yìwén zhì records Rén’s collection in six juǎn. When Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 was making the Shīzōng he still saw it. Today abroad transmission is extremely rare. The Róngchéng shīhuà 榕城詩話 says Wú Zhuō 吳焯’s family had a copy; but Wú’s collection, now entered into the shūjú, does not include this copy — its survival is unknown, and one fears it will be lost. We have respectfully taken from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and collected: in all, over five hundred poems; restored to six juǎn to match the original table — and recorded them here. Compiled and presented respectfully in the ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Abstract
Lán Rén’s lifedates are not securely fixed: CBDB (id 34383) records the name without dates. The career chronology bracketed by his time at Wǔyí under Dù Běn (Yuán Zhìzhèng era, c. 1350s), his (likely) service under Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠 in the 1360s, his forced relocation to Línháo at the Míng founding (1368), his Jiǎyín zhòngdōng poem in Hóngwǔ 7 (1374), and his elder-brother status in the Èr Lán — together place his birth in the 1310s or early 1320s and death some time after 1374, possibly in the 1380s or early 1390s.
The historical significance of the collection is the Mǐnzhōng shīpài attribution. The mature Mǐnzhōng school of the Yǒnglè / Xuāndé period — the Shízǐ 十子 (Ten Talents: Lín Hóng 林鴻 (KR4e0044), Wáng Gōng 王恭 (KR4e0045, KR4e0046), Chén Liàng 陳亮, Wáng Bó 王褒, Tāng Xìn 唐信, Zhèng Dìng 鄭定, Wáng Chēng 王偁, Gāo Bǐng 高棅, Zhōu Xuán 周玄, Huáng Yuán 黃元) — was conventionally taken as the founder of Mǐnzhōng verse, with no acknowledgment of the Lán brothers’ generation. The Sìkù editors’ explicit restoration of the Lán brothers to founding-generation status is the principal historiographical contribution of the present collection. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, follows this revisionist line: the Mǐnzhōng school originates with the Èr Lán under Dù Běn’s Wǔyí tutelage, not with the Yǒnglè Shízǐ.
The textual reconstruction is unusually well-documented: a single copy was held by Wú Zhuō 吳焯 of Hángzhōu (recorded in Háng Shìjùn 杭世駿’s Róngchéng shīhuà 榕城詩話) but apparently lost when Wú’s collection was incorporated into the Sìkù shūjú; Zhū Yízūn had seen another. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery preserves over five hundred poems — among the more substantial Sìkù reconstructions.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Notice of Lán Rén (under Lán Zhì, vol. 1, p. 791).
- 陳慶元 Mǐn-zhōng shī-pài yánjiū 閩中詩派研究. Fú-zhōu: Fú-jiàn rén-mín, 2007. The standard modern monograph; ch. 1 on the Èr Lán as founding generation.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí).
Other points of interest
The brother-pair Èr Lán 二藍 of Chóngān — Lán Rén and KR4e0037 Lán Zhì — are the canonical founding figures of the Mǐnzhōng poetry school, transmitting Rèn Sōngqīng 任松卿’s Sìmíng Táng-revivalist shīfǎ via Dù Běn 杜本 at Wǔyí. The forced relocation to Línháo (Yīngtiānfǔ’s gǔjiā prefecture) at the Hóngwǔ founding was the standard Míng treatment of yímín families who had served Zhāng Shìchéng.
Links
- Sìkù tíyào, Kyoto Zinbun digital edition
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng biéjí).