Héyuè yīnglíng jí 河嶽英靈集
Anthology of the Outstanding Spirits of the Rivers and Mountains by 殷璠
About the work
A three-juǎn critical anthology of high-Táng (盛唐) poetry compiled in Tiānbǎo 12 (753) — and possibly revised in early Tiānbǎo 13 (754) — by Yīn Pán 殷璠 of Dānyáng 丹陽. The book selects 234 poems by 24 poets active between Kāiyuán 2 jiǎyín (714) and Tiānbǎo 12 guǐsì (753), each poet group prefaced by a critical píngyǔ 評語 in which Yīn Pán pronounces on the man’s strengths and lineage. Together with his own programmatic xù 敘 and the Jílùn 集論 (“Discourse on the Collection”) that close the book, the Héyuè yīnglíng jí is the single most important contemporary witness to the high-Táng poetic canon — including Lǐ Bái 李白 (13 poems), Wáng Wéi 王維 (15), Gāo Shì 高適 (13), Cén Shēn 岑參 (7), Mèng Hàorán 孟浩然 (6), Cuī Hào 崔顥 (11), Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡 (16), Chǔ Guāngxī 儲光羲 (12) — and the foundational document for the critical vocabulary of shēnglǜ fēnggǔ 聲律風骨 (“phonic regulation and bone-character”) used by all subsequent Táng-poetics writers.
Tiyao
Abstract
Yīn Pán’s preface (translated): “Of literary writing there is the spirit-arrival, the qì-arrival, the feeling-arrival; there is the refined body, the rustic body, the vulgar body, the common body. Only an editor who carefully evaluates these bodies and traces their genealogy may judge what is superior and inferior… Since the Xiāo (i.e. Liáng) the polish has been increasingly forced. In the early Wǔdé a faint wave still ran; at the end of Zhēnguān the standard rose a little; in Jǐngyún there came something of the older modes; but only after the fifteenth year of Kāiyuán (727) did phonic regulation and bone-character at last cohere” (聲律風骨始備矣). The 24 poets named in the xù “are all ‘Outstanding Spirits of the Rivers and Mountains’; on these grounds the collection takes its title; 234 poems are divided into upper and lower scrolls, beginning jiǎyín and ending guǐsì (i.e. 714–753), each man with his evaluation and rank-comment placed at the head of his entry.” Tradition counts three juǎn (上中下), and the SBCK and WYG copies agree on the structure even though Yīn’s own preface speaks only of two.
The anthology’s date is anchored by the guǐsì terminal year of the selection (Tiānbǎo 12 = 753); the Jílùn may have been written slightly later, perhaps in Tiānbǎo 13 (754), since it presupposes the prefatory matter. The textual tradition splits at a notable juncture: the Sòng-era Wényuàn yīnghuá KR4h0022 preserves YīnPán píngyǔ readings that diverge from the received SBCK/WYG text, and Yuán Jié’s own Qièzhōng jí KR4h0008 preserves a Shěn Qiānyùn poem in a recension different from Yīn Pán’s (the SKQS 提要 to Qièzhōng jí notes the variants). The critical claim that high-Táng poetry was canonised by Yīn Pán’s selection is now standard in Anglophone scholarship (Owen 1981); the parallel attempts at canon-making by Gāo Zhòngwǔ 高仲武 in the Zhōngxìng jiānqì jí KR4h0012 and by Yáo Hé 姚合 in the Jíxuán jí KR4h0013 are typically read against the Héyuè yīnglíng jí as later, more sectional, and less programmatically ambitious.
Translations and research
- Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (Yale Univ. Press, 1981) — extensive use of the Héyuè yīnglíng jí as the principal contemporary critical source.
- Paul W. Kroll, “Anthologies in the Tang,” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, vol. 1 (2010), 295–306.
- Stephen Owen, The Late Tang (Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2006), Appendix on Táng anthology history.
- Wáng Yùn-xī 王運熙 & Yáng Míng 楊明, Sūi-Táng Wǔdài wénxué pīpíng-shǐ 隋唐五代文學批評史 (Shanghai: Shanghai gǔjí, 1994), ch. 4 on Yīn Pán.
- Lú Yànxīn 盧燕新, Hé-yuè yīnglíng jí jiào zhù 河嶽英靈集校注 (Shanghai: Shanghai gǔjí, 2014) — the modern critical edition.