Huìjī duōyīng zǒngjí 會稽掇英總集
Total Collection of Cuiqi Blossoms of Kuài-jī by 孔延之
About the work
A twenty-juǎn regional anthology of literature on the Kuàijī 會稽 (Shàoxīng) area, compiled in 1072 by Kǒng Yánzhī 孔延之 (1014–1074) while he was prefect of Yuèzhōu. The book gathers approximately 805 pieces — songs, shī, míng, zhì, etc. — from the Hàn down to the Northern Sòng, drawn from textual collections, prefaces and colophons, and direct rubbing-and-transcription from stelae and stone inscriptions. The compilation is structurally:
- Juǎn 1–15: poetry
- “Zhōuzhái” (yamen verse)
- “Xīyuán” (West Garden verse)
- “Hèjiān” (verse on Hè Zhīzhāng, Mìshūjiàn of the Táng)
- “Shānshuǐ” (eight sub-divisions: Lántíng etc.)
- “Sìguān” (four sub-divisions: Yúnménsì etc.; with cíyǔ appended)
- “Sòngbié,” “Jìzèng,” “Gǎnxìng,” “Chànghé”
- Juǎn 16–20: prose
- shǐcí, sòng, bēimíng, jì, xù, záwén
The principal documentary contribution is the systematic incorporation of stelae and stone inscriptions alongside literary collections, and the preservation of the Dàlì Zhèdōng chànghé 大曆浙東唱和 of more than fifty poets (around 770–780, the Dàlì literary circle in eastern Zhèjiāng under Bāo Jí 包佶 and Cuī Shù 崔述) — many of whom are otherwise unidentifiable in surviving Táng poetry. The TángSòng tàishǒu tímíng bìjì (prefectural appointment-records inscribed on hall walls) are also given in full text.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Huìjī duōyīng zǒngjí in twenty juǎn — by Sòng’s Kǒng Yánzhī. The original copy’s self-preface heads with his office title “Shàngshū sīfēng lángzhōng zhī Yuèzhōu jūnzhōu shì Zhèdōng bīngmǎ qiánxiá”; closes with “Xīníng rénzǐ 5th month 1st day, Yuèzhōu Qīngsī táng.” From the Shī Sù Jiātài Huìjī zhì Yánzhī was appointed prefect of Yuè in Xīníng 4 as Dùzhī lángguān; recalled to court in Xīníng 5 month 11; rénzǐ is exactly Xīníng 5; the months align with the Huìjī zhì. But the Zhì calls him Dùzhī lángguān, while this book has Sīfēng lángzhōng. In the anthology, Shěn Lì and others’ Hé Pénglái gé shī is signed “Kǒng Sīfēng” — these are Yánzhī’s own arrangements; the official title should not be wrong; one wonders what Shī Sù was working from.
Yánzhī’s book — taking the celebrated Kuàijī mountain-water-and-personage culture, the records and fùyǒng of which had been mostly dispersed — gathered extensively from texts, extending to stelae and stone inscriptions, from Hàn to Sòng, for a total of 805 míngzhì gēshī etc., compiled into 20 juǎn under topical headings. The first 15 are poetry: “Zhōuzhái,” “Xīyuán,” “Hèjiān,” “Shānshuǐ” (Lántíng etc., 8 sub-headings), “Sìguān” (Yúnménsì etc., 4 sub-headings; with cíyǔ appended), “Sòngbié,” “Jìzèng,” “Gǎnxìng,” “Chànghé”; the last 5 are prose: “Shǐcí,” “Sòng,” “Bēimíng,” “Jì,” “Xù,” “Záwén.” In the book, every author is named by full name — only Wáng Ānshí is recorded as “Shǐguǎn Wángxiàng” (Chief Minister Wáng of the History Office) — because at the time the book was made, Ānshí was actually wielding power, so Yánzhī avoided and dared not write the name openly.
The poetry and prose recorded here were mostly gathered by climbing cliffs and combing thickets, so much of it comes from outside the collections of the named men, and is rarely seen by the world. The Dàlì Zhèdōng chànghé of more than fifty men — those who collect Táng poems today often cannot list their names — survives only through this book. The TángSòng tàishǒu tímíng bìjì (prefectural-appointment hall-records) are all given in full original text: this is especially well-judged. The lost records and forgotten pieces, of distant provenance, are great help to kǎozhèng, and not merely to celebrate the editor’s labour of search. The book has rarely circulated; library-collectors mostly have not recorded it. The present text is the Míng-period Shānyīn Qíshì Dànshēngtáng manuscript copy preserved [in our court collection]. Reverently submitted, second month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date: anchored exactly by Kǒng Yánzhī’s preface — Xīníng rénzǐ 5/1 (1072 May 18). The book is in the tradition of Sòng-period jùnzhì prose-poetry compilations: Yánzhī wrote it during his Yuèzhōu prefectship as a documentary record of the cultural patrimony of Kuàijī, drawing on the rich pre-Sòng tradition (Wáng Xīzhī’s Lántíng jí of Yǒnghé 9 = 353; the Tàikāng WúXī monastic-literary tradition; Hè Zhīzhāng’s Táng-period legacy; the Dàlì Zhèdōng literary circle) and adding contemporary Sòng Northern-Sòng materials.
The book’s main contribution to modern scholarship is its preservation of (1) the Dàlì Zhèdōng chànghé — approximately 50 poets active in eastern Zhèjiāng ca. 770–790, many otherwise unknown; (2) the bìjì prefectural-records of Yuèzhōu (Táng and Northern-Sòng), which are documentary sources for local-administrative history not preserved in the standard histories; (3) the Lántíng tradition in textually different recensions; (4) early Sòng poetry on Kuàijī by figures whose individual collections are largely lost.
The book is unusual in being transmitted only through a Míng Shānyīn Qí Dànshēngtáng manuscript copy, never blocked-printed, until the Qīng Sìkù recovered it. Modern scholarship (Wáng Yuánhuà, Chén Bóhǎi) has begun to draw on the Huìjī duōyīng zǒngjí for Táng prosopographical work.
Translations and research
- Stephen H. West, “The Northern Song Literary Anthology Tradition,” in Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies 17 (1981).
- Chén Bó-hǎi 陳伯海, Táng-shī xué-shǐ gǎo 唐詩學史稿 — chapter on Sòng regional anthologies.
- Wáng Yuán-huà 王元化, Wáng Yuán-huà jí — discussion of the Dà-lì Zhè-dōng literary circle.
- Hé Zhōng-lǐ 何中禮, Huì-jī duō-yīng zǒng-jí jiào 會稽掇英總集校 (Hangzhou: Zhèjiāng gǔjí, 2006).
Other points of interest
The book is one of the earliest preserved Sòng regional anthologies (preceding the Chéngdū wénlèi KR4h0045 by 200 years) and an important documentary witness to the Sòng compilation of place-based literary traditions. Its precedent shaped Sòng fǔzhì (prefectural-gazetteer) literary chapters from the Southern Sòng onward.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §53.5 (gazetteers).
- ctext