Xióngfēng jí 熊峯集
Bear-Peak Collection by 石珤 (撰)
About the work
The collected writings of Shí Bǎo 石珤 (1465–1528), zì Bāngyàn 邦彥, hào Xióngfēng 熊峯, shì (first) Wényǐn → (revised) Wénjiè, of Gǎochéng 藁城 (Zhēndìng, Zhílì) — Wényuāngé dàxuéshì, the chief Húběi disciple of Lǐ Dōngyáng (李東陽) and the orthodox-Zhū anti-QiánQīzǐ defender of the Chálíng (Chángshā) literary school in the high Hóngzhì–Zhèngdé–early-Jiā-jìng. 10 juǎn: juǎn 1–4 verse, 5–6 prose, 7–9 verse, 10 prose — the disordered zácuò (jumbled) layout the result of three-stage incremental supplementation. The first selection was Huángfǔ Fāng 皇甫汸’s 4-juǎn recension; boards lost; Kāngxī dīngwèi (1727, sic — actually 1727 = Yōngzhèng 5; the Sìkù note dates it as Kāngxī dīngwèi, which is properly 1667 — the tíyào date here may be miscut for Yōngzhèng) Sūn Guāng-… of Yúyáo when zhīxiàn of Gǎochéng obtained Shí’s Biéjí yígǎo from his family and re-cut; on later learning that Zhēndìng’s Liáng Qīngbiāo 梁清標 held the complete manuscripts, he bought them and continued cutting, yielding the present 10 juǎn.
Tiyao
Xióngfēng jí in 10 juǎn — by Shí Bǎo of the Míng. Bǎo, zì Bāngyàn, native of Gǎochéng. Chénghuà dīngwèi (1487) jìnshì; office reached Wényuāngé dàxuéshì; shì Wényǐn, revised shì Wénjiè. Record in Míngshǐ main biography. Bǎo came out of Lǐ Dōngyáng’s gate; Dōngyáng often said: the junior to whom one can entrust the literary helm — only Bǎo, that one. Huángfǔ Fāng once cut-and-fixed his collection into 4 juǎn; over the years the boards were lost. Our dynasty’s Kāngxī dīngwèi (Yúyáo’s Sūn Guāng-… as Gǎochéng zhīxiàn) obtained the Biéjí yígǎo at his family and combined-and-re-cut. Later, learning that Zhēndìng’s Liáng Qīngbiāo held the complete drafts, bought-and-continued-cut, jointly making 10 juǎn. This běn from juǎn 1 to 4 is poetry; juǎn 5–6 prose; juǎn 7–9 again poetry; juǎn 10 again prose — being that the boards-cut were already decided, [the supplement] could not be inserted by category — therefore the tǐlì (form-and-rule) is cóngcuò (jumbled-and-broken) like this. Bǎo’s poetry-and-prose are all píngzhèng tōngdá (level-and-correct, penetrating-and-reaching), possessing the Chálíng tǐ (style); therefore Dōngyáng especially approved him. When Běidì and Xìnyáng were jīnjīn dàixīng (galloping-and-rising), Bǎo alone jiānshǒu shīshuō (firmly-held his teacher’s teaching); multiple times sat-the-wénhéng (took the literary scales = chief examiner); all forcefully chì fúkuā (struck down floating-extravagance), making [the prose] cuìrán yī chū yú zhèng (essentially-all issue from correctness). Though his talent-and-learning fall short of Dōngyáng, his shìshì chízhèng (steady-steady, holding-correctness), bù qū shíhào (not bending to time’s-fashion) — he can also be called a jiānlì zhī shì (firmly-standing scholar). Compiled and presented in the first month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
The Xióngfēng jí is the principal documentary record of the late-Hóng-zhì-Zhèng-dé-early-Jiā-jìng survival of the Chálíng 茶陵 (Chángshā / Lǐ Dōngyáng) literary school. Shí Bǎo was Lǐ Dōngyáng’s designated bǐng sīwén (literary-helm) heir — the only junior the senior thought fit to take up the táigé tradition — and in his repeated terms as chief examiner of the metropolitan examinations he fought the Lǐ Mèngyáng (KR4e0150) / Hé Jǐngmíng (KR4e0162) QiánQīzǐ (Former Seven Masters) archaicist revival head-on. The Sìkù judgement jiānshǒu shīshuō (firmly-holding the teacher’s teaching) and bù qū shíhào (not bending to time’s-fashion) explicitly places Shí as a jiānlì zhī shì (firmly-standing scholar) — one of the cleaner Sìkù placements of a Chángshā loyalist in the Míng biéjí corpus.
The recension history is the cleanest case in this division of Sìkù-era family-recovery: Huángfǔ Fāng (mid-Míng) made a 4-juǎn selection, lost; Kāng-xī-era Gǎochéng magistrate Sūn Guāng-… of Yúyáo recovered the Biéjí yígǎo from the Shí family; on learning of Liáng Qīngbiāo 梁清標 (the famous Qīng-early collector) holding additional manuscripts, bought-and-continued the cutting. The resulting jumbled 10-juǎn layout (4 poetry / 2 prose / 3 poetry / 1 prose) preserves the order of incremental recovery rather than re-sorting by form — and the Sìkù note acknowledges this as a tǐlì cóngcuò (jumbled form-and-rule) preservation issue rather than a literary defect.
CBDB id 68055 confirms 1465–1528. The catalog meta gives no dates, so CBDB supplies the bracket here.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Shí Bǎo.
- Míng shǐ j. 190 — Shí Bǎo biography.
- Daniel Bryant, The Great Recreation: Ho Ching-ming (1483–1521) and His World (Leiden: Brill, 2008) — for the Qián-Qī-zǐ literary climate Shí resisted.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §27.1 (Míng political history).
Other points of interest
The shì alteration from Wényǐn (“Civil-Hidden”) to Wénjiè (“Civil-Upright”) preserved in the tíyào and the Sìkù preface is unusual — Sìkù-tradition biéjí tíyào rarely note revisions of posthumous titles. The recovery via Liáng Qīngbiāo, the well-known Qīng-early collector, is also one of the cleanest Qīng-era Sìkù recensions to draw directly on a major collector’s library.