文選註

Wén xuǎn zhù 文選註

Selections of Refined Literature, with Annotations by 蕭統 and 李善

About the work

The Wén xuǎn zhù 文選註 is the canonical single-commentary recension of KR4h0001 Wén xuǎn 文選, the great Liáng anthology of pre-Táng poetry, fù, and prose compiled under Xiāo Tǒng 蕭統 (501–531). The annotations are the work of Lǐ Shàn 李善 (d. 689) of Jiāngdū 江都, Wénlín láng 文林郎 and Direct Scholar of the Chóngxián Academy 崇賢館, pupil of the SuíTáng Wén xuǎn lecturer Cáo Xiàn 曹憲. Lǐ presented the work to Tánggāozōng 唐高宗 in the third year of the Xiǎnqìng 顯慶 reign (658), as his preserved jìn biǎo 上文選注表 attests; the present 60-juǎn form reflects his subdivision (each of the original 30 juǎn split in two) and his explicit method of fù shì jiàn yì 附事見義 — annotation by adducing the textual source for each allusion rather than by glossing meaning. The work survived in Sòng as a free-standing edition but was rapidly absorbed into the composite KR4h0003 Liùchén zhù Wén xuǎn 六臣註文選 with the Five Officials’ commentary; the single-commentary text reproduced here is the Sìkù copy of the Máo Jìn 毛晉 (1599–1659) Jígǔgé 汲古閣 imprint.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the old text of the Wén xuǎn in sixty juǎn was edited by Xiāo Tǒng 蕭統, Crown Prince Zhāomíng of Liáng, and annotated by Lǐ Shàn 李善 of Jiāngdū — Wénlín láng, recording-secretary of the Right Inner Guards of the Crown Prince’s establishment, and Direct Scholar of the Chóngxián Academy — who first divided each juǎn into two. The Xīn Táng shū biography of Lǐ Yǒng 李邕 says that his father Shàn began by annotating the Wén xuǎn explaining sources but neglecting meaning, and that when the work was complete he showed it to Yǒng, who wished to revise it; Shàn then had him supplement it, and Yǒng appended explanations of meaning to the sources, so that the two books circulated in parallel. The present text combines both — apparently the form Yǒng established. However, the biography says Shàn annotated the Wén xuǎn during the Xiǎnqìng 顯慶 reign — consistent with our text, whose jìnbiǎo is dated to the third year of Xiǎnqìng (658). The Jiù Táng shū biography of Yǒng says he was beaten to death in the fifth year of Tiānbǎo 天寶 (746) after the affair of Liǔ Jì 柳勣, at a little over seventy; that is eighty-nine years after Xiǎnqìng 3, by which date Yǒng could not yet have been born and so cannot have helped his father annotate the book. Furthermore, counting back seventy years and more from Tiānbǎo 5 places his birth in the Zǒngzhāng 總章 or Xiánhēng 咸亨 reigns of Gāozōng. The old book says Shàn received his Wén xuǎn learning from Cáo Xiàn 曹憲 in the last years of the Suí, when he himself was already in his early twenties; at the time of Yǒng’s birth he must have been seventy-odd. He surely cannot have lived to Fú Shēng’s 伏生 age and only annotated the book when his son was grown. Lǐ Kuāngyì’s 李匡乂 Zī xiá lù 資暇錄 says that the Lǐ-family Wén xuǎn has a first-annotated form, a re-annotated form, a triple, and a quadruple, all of which were copied and circulated in their time; the final, definitive version contains plentiful explanations of pronunciation, gloss, and meaning, fully both source and meaning, with no need of Yǒng’s contribution. Kuāngyì was a Táng man near in date to Lǐ Shàn, and his testimony should carry weight; the Xīn Táng shū is fond of stories from minor anecdotes and is here uncareful. From the Southern Sòng onward the work has been printed together with the Five Officials’ commentary as the Liùchén zhù Wén xuǎn 六臣註文選, and the single-commentary edition has become extremely rare. The present copy is that engraved by Máo Jìn 毛晉, who claims to have collated it against a Sòng exemplar; but examination shows, in the annotation to Lù Yún’s 陸雲 poem to his elder brother Jī 機 in juǎn 25, one note labelled Xiàng yuē 向曰 and one labelled Jì yuē 濟曰; and in the notes to the poem “Presented to Zhāng Shìrán” 贈張士然 in the same juǎn, single notes labelled Hàn yuē, Xiàn yuē, Jì yuē, and Xiàng yuē. These probably remain because in cutting down the Six-Officials text to leave only Shàn’s notes, the engraver did not finish the job — Máo cannot truly have used a single-commentary exemplar. But as there is no other edition extant, we record this one and append a note on these inconsistencies. Reverently submitted, eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Collator Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Lǐ Shàn’s 658 commentary is the single most influential annotation in the Wén xuǎn tradition. Its method — providing the locus classicus for every phrase, exposing the yòng diǎn 用典 substratum of medieval Chinese ornate prose and rhapsody — preserves quotation-evidence for hundreds of pre-Hàn and Hàn texts long since lost, and remains a primary source for the textual history of works such as the Mù tiānzǐ zhuàn 穆天子傳 and various Cǐ shū 緯書 apocrypha. The dating of Lǐ Yǒng’s 李邕 (678–747) role in the commentary is a classic problem of Táng philology, debated since at least the Sòng. The tíyào defends Lǐ Kuāngyì’s 李匡乂 ninth-century testimony (in Zī xiá lù 資暇錄) that the surviving form is Lǐ Shàn’s own final recension — derived by Lǐ Shàn through multiple drafts — and rejects the Xīn Táng shū attribution to Lǐ Yǒng’s supposed editorial intervention; the chronological argument (Lǐ Yǒng was not yet born in 658) is decisive. The single-commentary text disappeared in the Southern Sòng under the dominance of the Six-Officials composite; Máo Jìn’s late-Míng reconstruction from a Sòng Liùchén exemplar reintroduced it but, as the tíyào notes, with surviving traces of the Five Officials’ glosses. The Sìkù compilers retained this Máo edition for want of any alternative.

Translations and research

• David R. Knechtges, Wen Xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature (Princeton UP, 1982–), with full translation of Lǐ Shàn’s notes for the fù sections (vols. 1–3 published).
• Knechtges and Chang, eds., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide (Brill, 2010–14), s.v. Wenxuan and Li Shan.
• Lǐ Xiánghào 李湘浩, Wén xuǎn Lǐ Shàn zhù yǔ Wǔ-chén zhù bǐjiào yánjiū 文選李善注與五臣注比較研究 (Shàngwù, 2003).
• Fù Gānglí 傅剛, Wén xuǎn bǎnběn yánjiū 文選版本研究 (Běijīng dàxué, 2000).
• Wáng Lìqún 王立群, Xiànqìng Wén xuǎn xué yánjiū 現代文選學研究 (Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué, 2003).
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §30.3.1, Box 174.

Other points of interest

The Máo Jìn imprint represented here is the ultimate source for the so-called “Húkè” 胡刻 single-commentary text — Hú Kèjiā 胡克家 (1757–1816) re-cut Máo’s edition in 1809 with corrections from a SòngYóujìn 尤袤 exemplar; the Hú-edition has remained the working text of Wén xuǎn scholarship ever since.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
• Wikipedia, “Li Shan (Tang dynasty)”
• ctext