Mùzhāi chū xué jí 牧齋初學集
First Learning Collection of (Qián Qiānyì) Mùzhāi by 錢謙益 (撰)
About the work
The pre-1644 collected poetry and prose of 錢謙益 Qián Qiānyì (1582–1664), the dominant literary figure of the late Míng — leader of the Dōnglín 東林 movement, jìnshì of Wànlì 38 (1610), and the central voice in Sūzhōu-prefecture literary circles for four decades. The collection comprises 110 juan: the shī part covers his poetry, gathered into successive sequences with original titles preserved (Chūxué jí, Lǚzhōng jí, Yǒuxué jí and similar headings within); the wén part runs through prefaces, memorials, biographies, epitaphs, examination-essay subjects, and the substantial historical-and-theological prose for which Qián was famous. The collection was edited and printed by Qián’s disciple Qú Shìsì 瞿式耜 (1590–1650, hào Jiàxuān 稼軒, the Chángshú Sūzhōu martyr of the Yǒnglì regime) in guǐwèi (Chóngzhēn 16, 1643) on the eve of the Míng collapse — fixing for posterity Qián’s Míng literary identity. Its companion volume KR4f0011 Mùzhāi yǒu xuéjí 牧齋有學集 carries the post-1644 prose-and-verse.
Prefaces
Preface to the Mùzhāi xiānshēng chū xué jí, by Qú Shìsì:
In the winter of guǐwèi (1643), Qú Jiàxuān of Hǎiyú (Chángshú) printed his master the Mùzhāi Master’s Chū xué jí in 100 juan; when it was completed, the master had twice written to me, enclosing his recent compositions and his account-of-conduct (xíngzhuàng) for the Gāoyáng [Sūn Chéngzōng], pressing me with great urgency to compose a preface — and I had been deferring, not yet finding myself ready: for although the master has withdrawn from office, his writing is held by the entire realm in such gravely settled admiration, like Mount Tài and the Northern Dipper, that even the literati of Kǒrim and the boat-folk of the southern sea know enough to love it; for me, a backwater village graybeard, to put a preface at its head would be to set off a hubbub of derision at my pretension. … I have known the master from before he passed the examinations: at first sight we knew each other in our hearts, and that was thirty years ago. … [from guǐhài (1623) through Tiānqǐ jiǎzǐ (1624) when the master was struck from the rolls and left the capital; from Chóngzhēn wùchén (1628) when, with the present sovereign newly enthroned, he was called up from the fields, was about to be employed, and was then attacked by the favorite-court-officials and again sent home; he then invited me to plow with him on the hill-and-lake. He was afterwards falsely accused by powerful enemies and imprisoned, his life hanging on a single hair — yet the master’s appetite for learning grew the stronger, his deep thought the more profound. Shī Mèngxiáng of Jiādìng, returning from his post as criminal judge of Wǔchāng, told me he had visited the prison twice and pitied the master’s tight, damp confinement — barely habitable. Yet there at dawn and dusk the master sat reciting and probing, never tiring, exactly as in his ordinary days; even with his disciple Qú, and with his friend Liú Jìngzhòng, he discussed art and exchanged poems…] His poems in seven-character regulated meter from each crisis number twenty or thirty pieces; with the encomiums, miscellaneous verses and prison-poems the total reaches several hundreds. The more imminent the calamity, the more brilliant and the more boldly strange the writing — yet resentful but not bitter, anxious but not cowering — catching the Shī-poet’s admonitory aim without losing the gentle-and-loyal temper. Not one possessed of great roots and settled understanding, truly able to trust in former causes and penetrate to past lives, could have brought himself to forsake self-and-other, leaving gain-and-loss behind, with such unforced amplitude. …
Abstract
The work is one of the two pillars of Qián Qiānyì’s literary corpus (the other being KR4f0011 Yǒu xuéjí). The two are conceptually paired: Chū xuéjí preserves Qián’s Míng identity (writings to 1643, printed by his Míng-loyalist disciple Qú Shìsì on the eve of the Manchu invasion); Yǒu xuéjí preserves his Qīng identity (writings from 1644 onward, in which his brief Qīng service and subsequent withdrawal cast every page in a different ethical light).
Qián was proscribed by the Qiánlóng emperor in 1769: imperial edicts of Qiánlóng 34 ordered the destruction of all of his works that could be found, his inclusion on the èrchén list, and the deletion of his name from prefaces and reference works in the Sìkù. The Chū xué jí and Yǒu xué jí therefore have no Sìkù tíyào — they were considered politically inadmissible. The SBCK recension draws on the Qú Shìsì 1643 imprint, which survived in clandestine private libraries despite the proscription, and was finally republished in the late Qīng and early Republic. The SBCK is the canonical pre-modern recension.
The composition window runs from c. 1600 through 1643. Many pieces are datable from internal cyclical markers and from the chronology in Qú Shìsì’s preface — the 1610 jìnshì, the 1621 dispatch to the Zhèjiāng provincial examinations, the 1624 xuējí (deletion from the rolls), the 1628 recall, the 1640s imprisonment under Wēn Tǐrén’s 溫體仁 faction, etc.
Translations and research
Kang-i Sun Chang, The Late-Ming Poet Ch’en Tzu-lung: Crises of Love and Loyalism (New Haven: Yale UP, 1991) — uses Chū xuéjí extensively for late-Míng poetic context.
Chen Yinque 陳寅恪, Liǔ Rú-shì bié zhuàn 柳如是別傳 (3 vols., 1960; rpt. Shanghai guji, 1980) — the foundational biographical study of Qián and his consort Liǔ Rú-shì 柳如是; draws on the Chū xuéjí throughout.
Pei-yi Wu, The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China (Princeton, 1990) — analyzes Qián’s autobiographical prose.
Lawrence C. H. Yim, The Poet-historian Qian Qianyi (London: Routledge, 2009) — most substantial English-language monograph; uses both jí extensively.
Sūn Zhī-méi 孫之梅, Qián Qiānyì yǔ Míng-mò Qīng-chū wén-xué 錢謙益與明末清初文學 (Jǐnán: Qílǔ shūshè, 1996).
Other points of interest
The fact that Qú Shìsì’s preface is dated 1643 guǐwèi fixes the Chū xuéjí as a pre-Qīng publication; Qián’s own 1644-onward writings could not be added without breaking the Chūxué / Yǒuxué periodization, hence the parallel Yǒu xuéjí. The two collections together form the most important single-author source for the social, political, and literary history of the late-Míng Sūzhōu prefecture network — the Fù shè 復社, the Dōnglín, the Sūzhōu jíshè poetic circles, and Qián’s vast correspondence with Buddhist and Daoist clerics.
Links
- Wikidata Q707080 (Qian Qianyi)
- ECCP 148–150 (Tu Lien-che)
- Chen Yinque, Liǔ Rúshì bié zhuàn