Yùlǎn shī 御覽詩
Poems for the Imperial Reading by 令狐楚
About the work
A short one-juǎn anthology compiled on imperial command (奉勅) under Xiànzōng (r. 805–820) by Lìnghú Chǔ 令狐楚 (766–837) while he was Hànlín xuéshì and Zhōngshū shěrén. It collects 289 jìntǐ (regulated and quatrain) poems by 30 mid-Táng poets, predominantly Dàlì (766–779) and post-rebellion writers such as Lú Lún 盧綸, Lǐ Duān 李端, Sīkōng Shǔ 司空曙, Zhāng Jí 張籍, and Yáng Jùyuán 楊巨源, with the older Wéi Yìngwù 韋應物 as the sole representative of the earlier Tiānbǎo generation. The collection is also known as the Táng gēshī 唐歌詩, the Xuǎnjìn jí 選進集, and the Yuánhé yùlǎn 元和御覽.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Yùlǎn shī in one juǎn, also titled Táng gēshī, Xuǎnjìn jí, and Yuánhé yùlǎn, was compiled by Lìnghú Chǔ of the Táng. Chǔ, zì Gǔshì, was a native of Yízhōu Huáyuán. In Zhēnyuán 7 (791) he passed the jìnshì examination; the Guìguǎn guānchá shǐ Wáng Gǒng 王拱 brought him into his staff; later he served as Tàiyuán jiédù pànguān; was summoned to be yòu shíyí; rose to Lìbù shàngshū and Jiǎnjiào shàngshū zuǒ púyè; went out as Shānnán xīdào jiédùshǐ and died in office. His career is fully treated in the Tángshū biography. This book was compiled by imperial command in Xiànzōng’s time. Its colophon is signed “Hànlín xuéshì cháoyì láng shǒu zhōngshū shěrén.” His biography records that Huángfǔ Bó 皇甫鎛, on close terms with Chǔ, recommended him as xuéshì and zhōngshū shěrén; in Yuánhé 12 (817) Péi Dù as chief minister took the appointment of Zhāngyì jiédùshǐ; Chǔ drafted the edict whose wording proved unsatisfactory; he was relieved of his xuéshì post but kept the shěrén post — so the presentation of this book must lie before Yuánhé 12. Lù Yóu’s Wèinán wénjí preserves a colophon to it: “Right: the Táng Yùlǎn shī in one juǎn, thirty hands and two hundred eighty-nine pieces in all, was compiled by the Yuánhé xuéshì Lìnghú Chǔ. The Lú Lún mùbēi records that in Yuánhé Emperor Zhāngwǔ commanded his attendant ministers to collect poems and rank by famous houses, gaining three hundred ten pieces, of which Lú’s contributions presented to the throne are one in ten — the current Yùlǎn preserves thirty-two of Lú’s pieces, exactly the one in ten of which Lù Yóu speaks. From this it is beyond doubt that the Yùlǎn shī is an old Táng book; though the mùbēi says three-hundred-and-ten while we now have only two hundred eighty-nine, the difference is loss.” The present copy agrees in number of poets and poems with what Lù Yóu’s colophon describes, and so still reflects the old text.
Only Wéi Yìngwù is a Tiānbǎo-period man; the rest — Lǐ Duān, Sīkōng Shǔ, etc. — are all Dàlì and later. Zhāng Jí and Yáng Jùyuán are even men of Lìnghú’s own time. The criteria of inclusion and exclusion are not very lucid. Only regulated forms are taken, with no ancient-style pieces; even pieces like “Wūshān gāo” 巫山高, taking on a yuèfǔ title, are kept only in lǜ form. Since the mid-Táng, the age has cultivated metrical-illness avoidance and harmonious singability; those rising up to chase the old modes are not more than Hán Yù and a few others — and Chǔ too was bound by the air of his time and could not differ. The biographies note that Chǔ excelled at memorials and edicts: every piece written would be circulated and chanted at once, and the Jiù Tángshū Lǐ Shāngyǐn biography says Chǔ taught Shāngyǐn his memorial style. None praised his poetry. Liú Yǔxī’s collection has hé Chǔ poems with the line “though there is wind and feeling, it does not match the line Sì dēng tán” — and even the one juǎn of Chǔ’s own poems that survives is at most ten pieces (five each of Gōngzhōng yuè, Cóngjūn cí, Niánshào xíng) of any standing, the rest tending to bǐjù (vulgar lines). Such tendencies are visible in his own selection too — e.g. Lú Lún’s Sòng dàoshì and Fùmǎ huāzhú, Zhèng Cōng’s Hándān xiá shàonián, Yáng Líng’s Géqián shuāngjǐn — all in vulgar tone. Yet on the whole the Yùlǎn shī is decorous, harmonious and singable, not without style: above the Qièzhōng jí KR4h0008 it falls short, below the Cáidiào jí KR4h0019 it has the upper hand; one or two flaws should not condemn the whole. Reverently submitted, fourth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Datable by the Sòng-era Yuè Kè and Lù Yóu colophons (the latter, preserved in the Wèinán wénjí, is the most detailed) and by the political turning point of Yuánhé 12 (817), when Línghú lost his xuéshì post: the presentation of the book is constrained to lie before that year. The Yùlǎn shī is therefore one of the earliest Yuánhé anthologies and a direct counterpart to Lìnghú’s protégé Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s literary-political milieu a generation later. The selection is unusual for being almost exclusively jìntǐ — the gǔwén and yuèfǔ reaction of Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán, and Bái Jūyì is conspicuously absent. The book is consequently read by modern scholarship as a documentary witness to court-decorous Yuánhé taste in tension with the more famous reformist current. The same Lú Lún whose 32 pieces dominate the anthology is the leading Dàlì poet; later anthologists (Cáidiào jí, Tángshī sānbǎi shǒu) drew most of their Lú Lún corpus from Línghú’s selection.
Translations and research
- Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2006), with discussion of Líng-hú Chǔ as Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s patron.
- Anna Shields, One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China (Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2015) — Líng-hú Chǔ in mid-Táng patronage networks.
- Fù Xuáncóng 傅璇琮, Táng-rén xuǎn Táng-shī xīn biān 唐人選唐詩新編 (Xī’ān: Shǎnxī rénmín, 1996) — collated edition with notes.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext
- Wikidata Q10907183 (Lìnghú Chǔ)