Yīnyuán jí 因園集
The Yīn-yuán Garden Collection by 趙執信 (撰)
About the work
The 13-juan late-life curated recension of the poetry of 趙執信 Zhào Zhíxìn (1662–1744, zì Shēnfú 伸符, hào Qiūgǔ 秋谷, late-life Yíshān lǎorén 飴山老人), the most polemical late-Kāngxī / early-Qiánlóng poetic critic — author of the Tán lóng lù 談龍錄 (which contests both 王士禛’s Shényùn and 田雯’s qílì). Of Yìdū 益都 (Shāndōng), Yōngzhèng-era renamed Bóshān 博山. Jìnshì of Kāngxī 18 (1679, jǐwèi), rose to zuǒ chūnfāng zuǒ zànshàn. The 13 sub-collections — assembled as 13 separate juan, one each — are: (1) Bìngmén jí; (2) Xiánzhāi jí; (3) Huánshān jí; (4) Guānhǎi jí; (5) Gǔyì jí; (6) Juānliú jí; (7) Fēngxī jí; (8) Hóngyèshānlóu jí; (9) Fújiā jí; (10) Jīnéguǎn jí; (11) Huífān jí; (12) Huáijiù jí; (13) Huángān jí. The colophon by Dīng Jìlóng 丁際隆 at the end of the volume, dated Qiánlóng xīnyǒu (6, 1741), reports that Zhào — then blind and unable to write poetry for six years — had personally fixed the manuscript through his eldest son Zhòng Shìbǎo 仲是保 (zì Gēngméi 羮梅), who entrusted Dīng to make a fair copy for printing.
Tiyao
Your servants reverently submit the following: the Yīnyuán jí in 13 juan is by Zhào Zhíxìn of our dynasty. Zhào, zì Shēnfú, hào Qiūgǔ, in his late years Yíshān lǎorén, of Yìdū. In the Yōngzhèng reign Yìdū was divided to establish Bóshān county; today (1781) he is a Bóshān man. Jìnshì of jǐwèi of Kāngxī (1679), rose to zuǒ chūnfāng zuǒ zànshàn. His poetry collection circulates very widely, and the various editions are often different.
This text has at the end a colophon by Zhào’s disciple Dīng Jìlóng dated Qiánlóng xīnyǒu (1741), saying: “This autumn I again paid respects to the Qiūgǔ master at the Yīnyuán garden. The master’s eye-trouble was very severe; he had not composed poetry for six years. From his second son Gēngméi I obtained the master’s hand-fixed shī gǎo in 13 sub-collections; I copied them out but had not yet finished collating when Gēngméi suddenly took the original back. In the cold winter, with nothing to do, I collated through once. The hand-written Jǐnán zhúzhī and Sù Fǎqìngsì two regulated poems — both were not present; what was deleted must have been much.” Gēngméi is the zì of Zhòng Shìbǎo of Chángshú, the first among Zhào’s disciples, his most intimate dǔqì (faithful associate). Thus this collection is Zhào’s late-life dìng běn (fixed text) personally handed to him.
The 13 sub-collections are: Bìngmén jí, Xiánzhāi jí, Huánshān jí, Guānhǎi jí, Gǔyì jí, Juānliú jí, Fēngxī jí, Hóngyèshānlóu jí, Fújiā jí, Jīnéguǎn jí, Huífān jí, Huáijiù jí, Huángān jí — each in 1 juan, to preserve the original divisions; we do not redo them by piece-count.
Zhào’s wife was the niece of 王士禛 Wáng Shìzhēn. The two were at first congenial, in repeated correspondence; the rift originated when Zhào requested Shìzhēn to write a preface for the Guānhǎi jí, and Shìzhēn repeatedly missed the deadline. Vituperation gradually arose, ending in lifelong enmity. Now in the Huánshān jí there are still two pieces in response to Shìzhēn; also a 13-poem set for Shìzhēn on the Xīchéng biéshù. But in the Gǔyì jí the Dù jiāng piece already has “zhī yīng xiàn shīlǎo, chí jié wèn Mínyuán” — annotated meaning Ruǎnwēng (Wáng Shìzhēn); and the Dào Wú Xiàolián piece has “Yúyáng wèi shí míng xiān zhe” — the tone is no longer harmonious. From here on they openly attacked each other, so the claim that the xìn (rift) arose at the Guānhǎi jí writing is credible. Subsequent disciples flowed the wave [further]. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), [month]. Chief editors your servants 紀昀, 陸錫熊, 孫士毅. Chief proof-collator your servant Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
Zhào Zhíxìn’s Tán lóng lù 談龍錄 is the most polemically explicit critical work of the late-Kāngxī / early-Qiánlóng period — a sustained attack on 王士禛’s Shényùn program and on 田雯’s qílì alternative. The biographical story documented by the Sìkù tíyào — that the rift between Zhào and Wáng began over an unfulfilled preface for the Guānhǎi jí — is one of the most documented critic-poet feuds of the period. The Sìkù’s careful reconstruction of the chronology (the still-friendly Huánshān jí materials, the tonal shift in the Gǔyì jí’s Dù jiāng piece, and so on) is a substantial historical-philological achievement, drawing on the dated cyclical references within Zhào’s poems to reconstruct the dating of the feud.
Composition window: 1679 (Zhào’s jìnshì year, his earliest dated material in the Bìngmén jí) through 1741 (the final fixed text — though Zhào continued writing through the 1730s, his eyes failed c. 1735). The 13-juan recension is Zhào’s personally-fixed late text.
Translations and research
Richard John Lynn, “Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: Wang Shih-chen’s Theory of Poetry and Its Antecedents,” in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (Columbia UP, 1975) — discusses the Zhào-Wáng feud.
Yán Dí-chāng 嚴迪昌, Qīng shī shǐ (Jiāngsū gǔjí, 1990) — substantial chapter on Zhào and the Tán lóng lù polemic.
Léi Mèng-cí 雷夢辭, Zhào Qiū-gǔ nián pǔ 趙秋谷年譜.
ECCP 71–72 (Tu Lien-che).
Other points of interest
The ZhàoWáng feud is also documented in the Yúyáng shīhuà 漁洋詩話 (where Wáng’s portrayal of Zhào is correspondingly polemical) and in 宋犖’s Màntáng cǎo prose. The two-sided documentation makes the late-Kāngxī critical feud one of the best-attested in pre-modern Chinese literature.
Links
- Wikidata Q66258940 (Zhao Zhixin)
- ECCP 71–72
- Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào