Wénjiǎn jí 文簡集
Wén-jiǎn Collection by 孫承恩 (撰)
About the work
The collected writings of Sūn Chéngēn 孫承恩 (1481–1561), zì Zhēnfǔ 貞父 (alt. 貞甫), posthumous shì Wénjiǎn 文簡, of Huátíng 華亭 (Sōngjiāngfǔ, Jiāngsū) — Lǐbù shàngshū jiān Hànlín xuéshì zhǎng Zhānshìfǔ. 58 juǎn: juǎn 1–7 memorials, biǎo, jiǎngzhāng (lecture-texts) — all imperial-presentation works; juǎn 8–26 fù, poetry, cí, qǔ; juǎn 27–58 miscellaneous prose. Compiled by his disciples Yáng Yùsūn 楊豫孫, Dǒng Yíyáng 董宜陽, Zhū Dàsháo 朱大韶; posthumously printed by his son Sūn Kèhóng 孫克弘 (Hànyáng zhīfǔ); preface by Lù Shùshēng 陸樹聲. The collection’s principal political-loyalty document is Sūn’s Jiājìng Zhèngshǐ zhēn jiàngǔ yùnyǔ (Cautionary-Verse on Beginning-Correctly with Reflection-on-Antiquity) and jiǎngzhāng (lecture-texts), composed during his early-Jiā-jìng jīngyán jiǎngguān (Imperial-Lecture) appointment. As zōngbó (Lǐbù shàngshū), refused to huángguān (don the Daoist yellow-cap) for Shìzōng’s Daoist-rites; quit. This is the Sìkù-canonical contrast to Yán Sōng 嚴嵩 etc. who used qīngcí (blue-prayer Daoist-poetry) to flatter — rénpǐn zhuōhū bùtóng (his personal grade strikingly different).
Tiyao
Wénjiǎn jí in 58 juǎn — by Sūn Chéngēn of the Míng. Chéngēn, zì Zhēnfǔ, NánZhílì Huátíng native. Zhèngdé xīnwèi (1511) jìnshì; office reached Lǐbù shàngshū concurrent Hànlín xuéshì, holding Zhānshìfǔ; shì Wénjiǎn. This collection is what his disciples Yáng Yùsūn, Dǒng Yíyáng, Zhū Dàsháo compiled. The 7 juǎn before are memorials, biǎo, jiǎngzhāng — all imperial-presentation works. From juǎn 8 onwards is fù, poetry, cí, qǔ. From juǎn 27 onwards is miscellaneous prose. Lù Shùshēng wrote its preface. Chéngēn at the beginning of Jiājìng as shùzǐ serving as jīngyán jiǎngguān; the collection’s Zhèngshǐ zhēn jiàngǔ yùnyǔ (Cautionary-Verse on Beginning-Correctly with Reflection-on-Antiquity) and jiǎngzhāng are precisely this period’s work. When as zōngbó (Lǐbù shàngshū) — palace-fasting setting-up altars — Chéngēn alone refused to huángguān (don the yellow-cap), then begged retirement; compared to Yán Sōng and others’ qīngcí zìmèi (blue-prayer self-flattery) — his personal-grade strikingly different. His literature also chúnzhèng tiányǎ (pure-correct, calm-elegant) — has the leftover of Míng-early makers. Shùshēng’s preface says: the prose of the beginning-of-the-dynasty is pure-and-thick, overpowering — bin-bin (gentle and orderly) yet substance has its literature; reaching Guānxī (Lǐ Mèngyáng) and Xìnyáng (Hé Jǐngmíng), two gentlemen emerge, ancestrally pursue QínHàn, despise WèiJìn and below — within the seas, art-and-learning scholars all willingly took-up-the-whip-and-followed; the placing-and-positioning is all everyone self-impersonating Pre-Qín or Hàn to hope to fāngguǐ (carriage-parallel); though tǐ shàng yīxīn (style honors one-new), the early-dynasty’s chúnpáng húnhòu (pure-bulky, whole-thick) breath rather slightly faded. The Master grew up in the Xiànzōng / Xiàozōng court; broadly examining, vastly seeing; deep-attainment, abyss-storage; therefore what comes out of writing — class-and-all are shēnhòu ěryǎ (deep-and-thick, calm-and-elegant), yūxú wěizhé (winding-slow, gentle-and-bent); critics say the Master’s life-time established speech is similar-to his being-a-person, etc. — also a píngyǔn zhī lùn (balanced-and-fair discussion). Compiled and presented in the third month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
Sūn Chéngēn’s Wénjiǎn jí is one of the cleanest Sìkù-preserved early-Jiā-jìng anti-Yán-Sōng literary documents. The Daoist-rites huángguān refusal episode — Sūn’s principled withdrawal from the Lǐbù during Shìzōng’s Daoist-fasting obsession, where Yán Sōng (嚴嵩) and others were producing qīngcí (blue-prayer poetry) to flatter — is the locus classicus of the Sìkù’s editorial contrast: rénpǐn zhuōhū bùtóng (his personal grade strikingly-different from Yán Sōng). This is one of the Sìkù biéjí tradition’s cleanest moral-character signals.
The Sōngjiāng / Sūzhōu literary network: Sūn together with Lù Shēn (KR4e0165) and Gù Qīng (KR4e0149) on the Sōngjiāng side, and with Wén Zhēngmíng, Wáng Áo (KR4e0133), Wú Kuān (KR4e0131) on the Sūzhōu side — making this collection a documentary anchor for the Sōngjiāng pure-Confucian branch of the larger Wú-school region.
The Lù Shùshēng preface — extensively quoted by the Sìkù — is the canonical late-Míng (Wàn-lì-era) zhèngtǒng (orthodox-tradition) account of Míng literary history: early dynasty chúnpáng húnhòu (pure-bulky, whole-thick), disrupted by Lǐ Mèngyáng and Hé Jǐngmíng’s zhuīzōng QínHàn archaicism, with Sūn’s prose preserving the older píngyǎ (level-elegant) line. The Sìkù’s endorsement of Lù’s account as píngyǔn zhī lùn — “a balanced and fair discussion” — is one of the cleaner editorial signals against the QiánQīzǐ archaicism in this division.
CBDB id 129727 gives 1481–1561, against the catalog meta’s 1485–1565 — CBDB date is followed here.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Sūn Chéng-ēn.
- Míng shǐ j. 193 — Sūn Chéng-ēn biography.
- Maggie Bickford, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre (CUP, 1996) — for the Sōng-jiāng painting context (Sūn’s son Sūn Kè-hóng is a documented painter).
- John W. Dardess, Four Seasons: A Ming Emperor and His Grand Secretaries in Sixteenth-Century China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) — for the Jiā-jìng / Yán Sōng-era court politics context.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §27.1 (Míng political history).
Other points of interest
The huángguān refusal — Sūn’s principled withdrawal during the Shìzōng Daoist-rites palace-fasting altar service that Yán Sōng flatteringly embraced — is one of the cleanest documentary anchors in the Sìkù Míng biéjí for Confucian-against-Daoist-court-rite resistance. The Sōngjiāng literary network (Sūn / Lù Shēn / Lù Shùshēng / Xú Jiē) gives the collection a layered intellectual context.