大全集

Dàquán jí 大全集

The Complete Collection by 高啟 (撰)

About the work

Dàquán jí 大全集 in eighteen juǎn is the WYG recension of the verse collection of Gāo Qǐ 高啟 (1336–1374), zì Jìdí 季迪, hào Qīngqiūzǐ 青丘子, native of Chángzhōu 長洲 (Sūzhōu prefecture); the foremost early-Míng poet and leader of the Wúzhōng Sìjié 吳中四傑. The collection consolidates Gāo’s six constituent verse collections — Chuītái jí 吹臺集, Jiāngguǎn jí 江館集, Fèngtái jí 鳳臺集, Lóujiāng yíngǎo 婁江吟稿, Gūsū záyǒng 姑蘇雜詠, and the author’s own twelve-juǎn selection Fǒumíng jí 缶鳴集 — first cut by Gāo’s nephew Gāo Lì 高立 in Yǒnglè 1 (1403); recompiled by Xú Yōng 徐庸 in the Jǐngtài era and prefaced by Liú Chāng 劉昌 in 1450. The SBCK companion is KR4e0029 Gāo tàishǐ Dàquán jí; the parallel prose collection is KR4e0040 Fúzǎo jí (WYG) / KR4e0030 Gāo tàishǐ Fúzǎo jí (SBCK).

Tiyao

The Dàquán jí in eighteen juǎn — by Gāo Qǐ of the Míng. Qǐ, zì Jìdí 季迪, native of Chángzhōu. At the end of Yuán he avoided the troubles of Zhāng Shìchéng 張士誠 and lived in seclusion at Qīngqiū 青丘 on the Sōngjiāng 松江; he styled himself Qīngqiūzǐ. In the early Hóngwǔ he was summoned to compile the Yuán shǐ; appointed Hànlínyuàn Guóshǐ biānxiūguān; rose to Hùbù shìláng 戶部侍郎; later, on the charge of having composed Wèi Guān’s shàngliáng wén, he was executed at the age of only thirty-nine. He composed the Chuītái jí, Jiāngguǎn jí, Fèngtái jí, Lóujiāng yíngǎo, Gūsū záyǒng — over two thousand poems in all — and he selected them himself, fixing them as Fǒumíng jí in twelve juǎn, in over nine hundred poems. Qǐ died without a son. His nephew Lì in Yǒnglè 1 (1403) cut blocks and put them into circulation. By the early Jǐngtài era, Xú Yōng 徐庸 picked up the dispersed pieces and combined them into a single compilation entitled Dàquán jí; Liú Chāng 劉昌 wrote a preface for it — i.e., this present copy. Qǐ’s heavenly talent was lofty and unrestrained; he truly stands at the head of the poets of the one Míng era. As to his verse: imitating HànWèi he resembles HànWèi; imitating the Six Dynasties he resembles the Six Dynasties; imitating Táng he resembles Táng; imitating Sòng he resembles Sòng — every excellence of the ancients he embodied. He had real strength in lifting the late-Yuán tradition of xiānnóng rùlì 纖穠縟麗 and returning it to the antique. Yet his rise was too early and his early death too rapid; he was unable to refine and transform the inheritance into a manner of his own. So he embodies all the gé of the ancients yet cannot be named for any particular Qǐgé 啟格. This is what Heaven really limited; it is not Qǐ’s fault. Especially within his imitation of the ancient modes, there is a jīngshén yìxiàng abiding therein. Like the Chǔ Linn Xī tiè 褚臨稧帖 (i.e. Chǔ Suìliáng’s tracing of the Lántíng xù) — it is in the end no equal of the hard-yellow / double-traced copies. So he is finally not pilloried by later generations together with Běidì 北地 [Lǐ Mèngyáng], Xìnyáng 信陽 [Hé Jǐngmíng], Tàicāng 太倉 [Wáng Shìzhēn], Lìxià 歷下 [Lǐ Pānlóng] — the four pillars of the High-Ming fùgǔ movement who suffered the reverse fate. Compiled and presented respectfully in the fifth month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779).

Abstract

Gāo Qǐ’s lifedates 1336–1374 are confirmed by CBDB (id 34385) and the standard reference works (Wilkinson, DMB). The textual history is detailed in the Tíyào: Gāo’s own twelve-juǎn Fǒumíng jí selection (about 900 poems) was first cut by his nephew Gāo Lì in Yǒnglè 1 (1403); the Jǐngtài 1 (1450) Xú Yōng 徐庸 recompilation enlarged this back to the original ~2,000-poem corpus and was prefaced by Liú Chāng 劉昌. This is the present WYG eighteen-juǎn recension. The companion SBCK printing KR4e0029 Gāo tàishǐ Dàquán jí preserves the same Liú Chāng preface but the SBCK title additionally bears the office-honorific tàishǐ 太史 (referring to Gāo’s appointment as Hànlínyuàn Guóshǐ biānxiū), which the WYG drops in the title proper.

The Sìkù editors’ celebrated assessment of Gāo’s place in early-Míng verse — that he embodied every antique manner without forging an identifiably-Gāo manner of his own, attributing this to his early death — is the standard description and is closely paired with their politically charged comparison to the High-Míng qiánhòu Qīzǐ (former and latter Seven Talents) fùgǔ movement: Lǐ Mèngyáng (Běidì), Hé Jǐngmíng (Xìnyáng), Wáng Shìzhēn (Tàicāng), Lǐ Pānlóng (Lìxià) all share Gāo’s imitative method but suffered later critical condemnation, while Gāo escapes the same fate because his early imitation is judged sincere and structurally distinguishable from the High-Míng formula-imitators. Wilkinson, Chinese History, §28.4, treats Gāo as the primary early-Míng poet; §43.7 takes his execution as the type case of the Hóngwǔ literary purges. F. W. Mote’s The Poet Kao Ch’i, 1336–1374 (Princeton, 1962) is the standard Western monograph.

The early front matter of the WYG includes (a) the Qiánlóng imperial yùzhì 御製 essay Yùzhì dú Gāo Qǐ Wēiài lùn 御製讀高啟威愛論 (placed before the Sìkù tíyào, reproducing the same essay that opens the WYG of KR4e0040 Fúzǎo jí); (b) Liú Chāng’s 1450 preface (also in KR4e0029); (c) Lǐ Zhìguāng 李志光’s Gāo tàishǐ běnzhuàn 高太史本傳 (a Hóngwǔ 8 / 1375 biography written one year after Gāo’s execution, also in KR4e0030). This concentration of paratext is unusual for a biéjí of the Hóngwǔ generation and reflects the editorial care given to Gāo by both the Jǐngtài and Qiánlóng editors.

Translations and research

• F. W. Mote. The Poet Kao Ch’i, 1336–1374. Princeton: PUP, 1962. The standard Western monograph.
• L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976. Entry on Gāo Qǐ (vol. 1, pp. 696–698).
• Jīn Tán 金檀, Qīng-qiū-zǐ shī-jí zhù 青丘子詩集注 (Yōng-zhèng era, c. 1728). The standard pre-modern annotated edition.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28.4 (Míng bié-jí) and §43.7 (Hóngwǔ literary purges).

Other points of interest

The Qiánlóng imperial yùzhì essay placed at the head of the parallel WYG KR4e0040 Fúzǎo jí — refuting Gāo Qǐ’s Wēiài lùn 威愛論 on the grounds that wēi (awe / dread) and ài (love) should be combined rather than the former preferred — is the imperial counter to the opening prose piece of Gāo’s prose collection. Together with the Sìkù editors’ protective recasting of Gāo’s literary-historical place, this is one of the cleanest cases of late-Qiánlóng imperial intervention in the Sìkù re-evaluation of executed Hóngwǔ-era literati.

Links

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