Dòu shì liánzhū jí 竇氏聯珠集
The Linked Pearls of the Dòu Family by 竇常 (etc.), compiled and prefaced by 褚藏言
About the work
A five-juǎn joint family anthology gathering one hundred poems by the five Dòu brothers of Fúfēng Pínglíng — Dòu Cháng 竇常 (749–825), Dòu Móu 竇牟 (749–822), Dòu Qún 竇群 (760–814), Dòu Xiáng 竇庠 (767–828), and Dòu Gǒng 竇鞏 (772–831) — one juǎn per brother. The compiler is Chǔ Cángyán 褚藏言 (self-styled Xījiāng yìmín, “Recluse of the West-river”), who produced both the principal preface and a biographical zhuàn for each brother. The title alludes to the five-star Wǔxīng rú liánzhū configuration — the five brothers, all lángshǔ (gentlemen-officials), aligned like five strung pearls. The book is the canonical Táng family-poetry anthology and a foundational document for the prosopography of the Dòu lineage at the mid-Táng court.
Tiyao
Abstract
Date: Chǔ Cángyán’s preface to juǎn 1 reports the Huìchāng 1 (841) posthumous promotion of Cháng to Tàizǐ shǎobǎo — so the compilation was made after that year and before ca. 845. The five brothers’ careers span from the post-rebellion Dàlì through the Tàihé — i.e., the four decades 779–831 — and the anthology is structured so that the brothers’ poems are read together as a family corpus.
The book is principal for two reasons. (1) It is the single richest documentary witness to a Táng official lineage’s literary production — the zhuàn attached to each brother by Cángyán supply (a) office career, (b) burial location, (c) extant collection size, (d) reception history. (2) Several of the Dòu brothers’ individual collections are partially or wholly lost — Móu and Qún survive only in fragments — so the anthology is the principal textual witness for those brothers.
The Dòu brothers’ careers also illustrate the literary-political mid-Táng liángzǐ network: Dòu Cháng was patronised by Bāo Jí 包佶 and the Tàiwèi Wáng (i.e., Wáng Wǔjùn 王武俊) of Chéngdé; Dòu Qún advanced under Liú Pì 劉闢’s rebellion and survived its suppression; Dòu Gǒng’s verse circulated with that of Bái Jūyì 白居易. The zhuàn texts in Chǔ’s compilation preserve documentary detail not in the Jiù / Xīn Tángshū.
Translations and research
- Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (Harvard Asia Center, 2006), brief discussion of the Dòu brothers.
- Tao Min 陶敏, Quán Táng shī rénmíng kǎo zhèng 全唐詩人名考證 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 1996) — biographical reconstruction of the Dòu lineage drawing on the liánzhū jí.
- Zhāng Pǔ 張溥, Hàn-Wèi liù-cháo bǎi-sān-jiā jí (Míng compilation) — preserves variant text of the Dòu shì liánzhū jí.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
- ctext