Yùzhì wénjí 御製文集
Imperial Prose Compositions (of the Qiánlóng Emperor) by 高宗弘曆 (御製)
About the work
The Qiánlóng emperor 高宗弘曆 (1711–1799)‘s post-accession prose compositions, in 92 juan total — assembled in three sequential collections (chūjí 初集 30 juan, èrjí 二集 c. 44 juan, sānjí 三集 c. 16 juan, with sequential prefaces). The first collection (memorialized by the vice-minister of revenue 于敏中 in Qiánlóng 28 / 1763 and printed shortly thereafter) contains 570-odd pieces from the accession through the early 1760s, in nineteen genre-classes following the model of KR4f0003’s pre-accession Lèshàntáng recension. The WYG recension was finalized in Qiánlóng 46 (1781). After the Sìkù’s closing date the corpus continued to grow with later collections; the WYG only includes the materials printed through 1781.
Tiyao
Your servants reverently submit the following: the Yùzhì wénjí, chūjí in 30 juan contains over 570 pieces, arranged with the prose preceding and the rhyme-pieces following, in nineteen genre-headings; within each heading the order is chronological. All are compositions made in the leisure of the myriad affairs of state, accomplished by the imperial vermillion-and-silk brush itself; the ordinary stele-texts, prefaces and records that the courtiers respectfully drafted on the imperial behalf are not included. Reverently considering it: the sage’s literary copiousness has been unmatched since high antiquity, and the present collection is but the initial foundation — going forward, his daily-renewing, month-augmenting compositions will be successively printed and made known, an unending blessing to the literati of all the coastal world. As for the perfection of conveying the Way and refining language to its highest pitch — like brilliant stars among streaming clouds, every eye sees it, and it is fully made out in the postfaces of his various courtiers; we, your servants, are unable to add a single further word. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), tenth month. Chief editors your servants 紀昀, 陸錫熊, 孫士毅. Chief proof-collator your servant Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The compilation history is recorded in detail in the front-matter materials reproduced in the WYG: the vice-minister of revenue 于敏中 (Yú Mǐnzhōng, 1714–1779) submitted the original memorial on the twenty-fifth day of the first month of Qiánlóng 28 (1763), requesting that the imperial prose corpus (over 500 pieces at that point) be edited and printed in parallel to the already-printed Yùzhì shījí poetry collection. The arrangement is by genre and then chronology, with two of Kāngxī’s Yùzhì wénjí heads (chìyù edicts; zòushū memorials) deliberately omitted: imperial edicts were to be diverted to their own series, and the zòushū category proper to a subject did not apply to the throne. The chūjí covers 1736–1763; subsequent collections extend the corpus through the late Qiánlóng reign.
The extent figure given by the catalog meta (92 juàn) reflects the full WYG-included material across all three collections. The work is the prose counterpart to KR4f0005; the pre-accession material is in KR4f0003.
Translations and research
Mark Elliott, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World (New York: Pearson Longman, 2009).
Patricia Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China (Honolulu: UH Press, 2003) — uses the Yùzhì wénjí corpus extensively for the religious-iconographic zàn and stele-texts.
Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: UC Press, 1999) — relies on prefaces drawn from this collection.
Other points of interest
The corpus is among the most heavily annotated of any pre-modern Chinese imperial wénjí — the front matter alone contains the editorial memorial (with imperial response), the fánlì, and the zǒngmù, supplying a near-complete record of the editorial process for a Qīng-imperial biéjí.
Links
- Wikidata Q26643 (Qianlong Emperor)
- Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào