Yùtái xīnyǒng 玉臺新詠
New Songs from a Jade Terrace by 徐陵
About the work
The Yùtái xīnyǒng 玉臺新詠 is an anthology of love poetry (broadly conceived) compiled by Xú Líng 徐陵 (507–583) at the command of Xiāo Gāng 蕢綱 (later Liáng Jiǎnwéndì 梁簡文帝, r. 549–551) while Xiāo was still Crown Prince at the eastern palace at Jiànkāng. The work circulates in 10 juǎn containing some 769 yuèfǔ and shī on amorous and palace themes, from the Hàn to the early Liáng. It is the second great pre-Táng general anthology after the Wén xuǎn 文選 (KR4h0001) and the standard repository for the gōngtǐ shī 宮體詩 (palace-style verse) tradition. The famous preface by Xú Líng is preserved here. The Sìkù copy is collated under V1331.3.
Tiyao
Abstract
The anthology was commissioned by Xiāo Gāng around the 530s — the conventional date is Zhōngdàtōng 中大通 6 (534) but the precise year is debated; the latest material datable in the original corpus is from around the early 540s. Xú Líng was probably an intimate of Xiāo Gāng’s literary salon and the gōngtǐ aesthetic was his own; the patron and the editor share authorship of the project. The work is exceptional in three ways: (1) it preserves a substantial body of pre-Liáng poetry not otherwise transmitted, including the Gǔshī wéi Jiāo Zhòngqīng qī zuò 古詩為焦仲卿妻作 (the “Peacock South-East Flew” ballad, the longest pre-Táng narrative poem); (2) it preserves an important early text of the Gǔ shī shíjiǔ shǒu 古詩十九首 and other Hàn five-syllable verse, transmitted in better witness than the Wén xuǎn; (3) it documents the rise of the gōngtǐ style at the Liáng court — explicitly amatory, ornate, often eroticized verse on the female body and palace life, which became a polarizing reference point in later poetic theory.
The principal modern dating discussions are by Anne Birrell (1982/2000) and Xiāo Lǐ 蕭立 (Yùtái xīnyǒng yánjiū, Wǔhàn dàxué, 2000); they generally agree on a window 533 × 545. The work has had a complex transmission history: the 10-juǎn form is the standard, but a 12-juǎn form is also attested in Sòng catalogues; the Yáo recension of Yáo Zhèn 姚振 and the Chénshì 陳氏 family text of Chén Yùfǔ 陳玉父 (Sòng) survive in various Míng prints, and the Sìkù copy is one of these. A study of the discrepancies is in Liú Yùruò 劉躍進, Yùtái xīnyǒng yánjiū (2003). The anthology’s reception in the Táng was muted (it was overshadowed by the Wén xuǎn as exam material), but it was reread enthusiastically by SòngYuán poets and was a model for early modern editors of fánhuā 繁華 literature.
For the substantive corrections of Sòng-era manuscript copies, see KR4h0006 Yùtái xīnyǒng kǎoyì 玉臺新詠考異 by Jì Róngshū 紀容舒 (Jǐ Yún’s father).
Translations and research
- Anne Birrell, New Songs from a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry (Allen & Unwin, 1982; rev. Penguin Classics, 1986; reissued 2000) — complete English translation with introduction.
- Liú Yùruò 劉躍進, Yùtái xīnyǒng yánjiū 玉臺新詠研究 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2003).
- Xú Píng 徐萍 / Wú Guāngxīng 吳光興, Xiāo Gāng, Xú Líng yǔ Yùtái xīnyǒng 蕭綱徐陵與玉臺新詠 (Běijīng shīfàn dàxué, 2009).
- Knechtges and Chang, eds., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, vol. 4 (Brill, 2014), s.v. Yutai xinyong.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §30.3.1.
Other points of interest
The famous preface — a tour-de-force of densely allusive parallel prose praising the women whose entertainment the anthology serves — is studied as a paradigm of gōngtǐ prose. Its ending phrase yī Tóngguǎn wú huò jī yān 猗歟彤管無或譏焉 (“ah, the red brush — let none reproach!”) invokes Shī jīng 詩經 Jìngnǚ to defend the propriety of an anthology of love verse.