Zhōngxìng jiānqì jí 中興間氣集
Anthology of Free Spirits of the Restoration by 高仲武
About the work
A two-juǎn anthology of Dàlì (766–779) poetry compiled in the early Zhēnyuán era (785–805) by Gāo Zhòngwǔ 高仲武 of Bóhǎi 渤海. The collection assembles 134 poems by 26 poets active in the years immediately after the An-Lùshān rebellion — the “Zhōngxìng” (Restoration) of Dàizōng and the early years of Dézōng — including Qián Qǐ 錢起, Láng Shìyuán 郎士元, Lǐ Jiāyòu 李嘉祐, Wéi Yìngwù 韋應物, Liú Chángqīng 劉長卿, Sīkōng Shǔ 司空曙, and Lú Lún 盧綸. Each poet is introduced by a critical píngyǔ in the style established by Yīn Pán’s Héyuè yīnglíng jí KR4h0009 half a generation earlier; the book is consequently read as the principal contemporary critical document for the Dàlì generation, complementing Yīn Pán for high-Táng and preceding Línghú Chǔ’s Yùlǎn shī KR4h0011 for the Yuánhé.
Tiyao
Abstract
Dating: Gāo Zhòngwǔ’s own preface speaks of seven men yǐ wáng (already passed away), including Qián Qǐ (d. ca. 783), suggesting a date no earlier than 785. The Xīn Tángshū yìwénzhì lists it among Zhēnyuán-era anthologies; modern scholarship (Fù Xuáncóng) accepts a date in the 785–793 range. The work is a transitional document: it preserves the píngyǔ form of the Héyuè yīnglíng jí but evaluates a generation in which the high-Táng critical categories no longer applied — the fēnggǔ 風骨 of the An-Lùshān-era writers and the qīngyǎ 清雅 of Dàlì poets. The critic’s main commitments are to decorous diction, moral fortitude, and measured tonality; Qián Qǐ in particular is canonised here as the leading Dàlì poet, a judgement subsequently echoed by Sòng anthologists.
Textual problems: the SBCK and WYG copies disagree in the number of poems for several poets, with the SBCK preserving readings closer to the Sòng manuscript tradition (Lú Yánxīn’s recent collated edition, Shanghai gǔjí 2014, draws this out). The Sòng-period Sānbǎishǒu anthologists and the editors of the Wényuàn yīnghuá KR4h0022 drew heavily on Gāo Zhòngwǔ for their Dàlì selections.
Translations and research
- Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (Yale, 1981) — discusses the Dà-lì poets and the limits of Gāo Zhòngwǔ’s critical framework.
- Paul W. Kroll, “Anthologies in the Tang,” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, vol. 1 (2010), 295–306.
- 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 text and biographical notes.
- Lú Yánxīn 盧燕新, Zhōngxìng jiānqì jí jiào zhù 中興間氣集校注 (Shanghai gǔjí, 2014).
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext