才調集

Cáidiào jí 才調集

Anthology of Surpassing Style by 韋縠

About the work

A ten-juǎn Táng-poetry anthology, one hundred poems per juǎn (one thousand pieces in all), compiled by Wéi Hú 韋縠, Jiānchá yùshǐ of the HòuShǔ 後蜀 kingdom (934–965). The Cáidiào jí is the largest and last of the Tang-by-Tang-man-and-Five-Dynasties anthologies — it stands apart from the three mid-Táng critical selections (Héyuè yīnglíng jí KR4h0009, Zhōngxìng jiānqì jí KR4h0012, Jíxuán jí KR4h0013) in scale, in scope (encompassing the whole Táng down to the Five Dynasties), and in aesthetic orientation: where the earlier anthologists prized fēnggǔ, qīngyǎ or kǔyín, Wéi Hú prefers nónglì hóngchǎng 穠麗宏敞 — opulent, broad-flowing diction — and consequently elevates Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱, Wēn Tíngyún 溫庭筠, the Xīkūn school predecessors, and the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties decorative current. The early-Qīng critics Féng Shū 馮舒 and Féng Bān 馮班 cited the anthology as the zhèngzōng 正宗 (orthodox lineage) for the Sòng-period Xīkūn tǐ — a polemical use that the SKQS editors decisively reject.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the Cáidiào jí in ten juǎn — by Wéi Hú, Jiānchá yùshǐ of Shǔ — every juǎn one hundred poems, one thousand in all. The self-preface mentions consulting Lǐ Bái’s, Dù Fǔ’s, Yuán Zhěn’s and Bái Jūyì’s collections — yet the anthology has not a single Dù Fǔ poem. Féng Shū’s view that Wéi venerated old Dù and would not cull is mistaken: actually Dù’s verse is too lofty and archaic to match the book’s editorial template, so it is simply not gathered. The collection has its corruptions: Lǐ Bái’s “Chóu yángchūn fù” 愁陽春賦 is a fù not a shī — wrongly included; Wáng Jiàn’s “Gōngzhōng tiáoxiào cí” 宮中調笑詞 is a cí not a shī — wrongly included; Hè Zhīzhāng’s “Liǔzhī cí” 柳枝詞 — that tune did not arise until the mid-Táng; it could not be by Hèzhīzhāng; the piece is by Liú Cǎichūn’s daughter — also misattributed; Liú Yǔxī’s “Bié dàngzǐ yuàn” 別宕子怨 is actually Suí Xuē Dàohéng’s “Xī xī yán” 昔昔鹽; Wáng Zhīhuàn’s “Chóuchàng cí” 惆悵詞 concerns Cuī Yīngyīng and Huò Xiǎoyù — events WángZhīhuàn did not live to see; it is actually by Wáng Huàn 王奐. All these are mis-attributions. Yet there are also genuine recoveries — Bái Jūyì’s “Jiāngnán zèng Xiāo shíjiǔ,” Jiǎ Dǎo’s “Zèng Dù fùmǎ” — both absent from their respective collections. Likewise Shěn Quánqī’s “Gǔ yì” — falsified by Gāo Bǐng 高棅 into a regulated piece — and Wáng Wéi’s “Wèichéng qū / Kèshè qīngqīng” — popular versions altered the liǔchūn to liǔsè xīn — and Jiǎ Dǎo’s “Zèng jiànkè” with shéi wéi bùpíng shì changed to shéi yǒu rúcǐ — this book alone preserves the original readings, and is therefore valuable for textual collation. Wéi Hú lived in the Five-Dynasties period of literary decay, so what he chose was modelled on late-Táng decoration to save the coarse and superficial mode — not without insight. Féng Shū and Féng Bān wished to denigrate Sòng poetry and so cited this book as the zhèngzōng of the Xīkūn style — but the Tángshū records only the “thirty-six bodies” of Lǐ Shāngyǐn etc. The Xīkūn tǐ as such begins with Yáng Yì 楊億 of the Sòng KR4h0025 — the Táng did not know this name. Reverently submitted, fifth month of Qiánlóng 41 (1776). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Cáidiào jí is one of the principal sources for the late-Táng poetry corpus: its preservation of the early readings of Wáng Wéi’s “Wèichéng qū,” Shěn Quánqī’s “Gǔ yì” and Jiǎ Dǎo’s “Zèng jiànkè” makes it textually indispensable, and the Sìkù editors single out these collation points. It is also the principal pre-Sòng anthology to preserve Lǐ Shāngyǐn at scale: of his now-canonical wútí and jīnsè corpus, several pieces survive only here. The omission of Dù Fǔ — the most discussed feature of the anthology — is read by the SKQS editors as a stylistic, not an ideological, choice: the HòuShǔ poetic taste was opposed to Dù Fǔ’s gāogǔ (high antique) mode in favour of the late-Táng decorated style.

The polemical use of the anthology in the early-Qīng Yúshān school (Féng Shū, Féng Bān) — who held that the Cáidiào jí established the Xīkūn lineage and made it more “orthodox” than the Xīkūn chóuchàng jí KR4h0025 of Yáng Yì — is rejected by the Qīng-court Sìkù editors, who insist on a strict chronology: the Xīkūn style is a Sòng innovation and the Táng has no such name. This judgement is now standard.

Translations and research

• Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (Harvard Asia Center, 2006) — discussions of the Cáidiào jí’s relation to Lǐ Shāngyǐn.
• 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 (Xī’ān: Shǎnxī rénmín, 1996) — collated edition with apparatus.
• Yú Cài-mín 殷彩民, Cáidiào jí jiào jiān 才調集校箋 (Beijing: Zhōnghuá, 2002).

Other points of interest

The collection contains a substantial proportion of female-voiced and palace-style poems — gōngcí and gōngtǐ — that other Táng anthologies systematically suppress. The Sìkù 提要 reads this as HòuShǔ taste: the small literary courts of the Ten Kingdoms favoured the elegant entertainment-poetry register, and Wéi Hú’s anthology preserves the canon of that taste.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3.1.
• ctext
• Wikipedia, “Caidiao ji”