宋文鑑

Sòng wénjiàn 宋文鑑

Mirror of Sòng Literature by 呂祖謙

About the work

A 150-juǎn imperially-commissioned anthology of Northern-Sòng prose and verse, compiled at the order of Xiàozōng by Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 (1137–1181, the eminent Jīnhuá school Confucianist) between Chúnxī 4 (1177) and Chúnxī 6 (1179). Originally titled the Huángcháo wénjiàn 皇朝文鑑 (“Mirror of Our Dynasty’s Literature”; the SBCK source above retains this Sòng-period title); the book was retitled Sòng wénjiàn in the post-Sòng tradition. The work is the single most authoritative Sòng-period selection of Northern-Sòng literature — covering the period from Jiànlóng (960) to the Jìngkāng fall (1127) — and was conceived as the principal documentary monument to běncháo (our-dynasty) literary culture parallel to the Wényuàn yīnghuá KR4h0022 for the pre-Sòng period.

Lǚ Zǔqiān drew on the Sānguǎn sìkù (the three imperial libraries and four storehouses) and the records of literary-gentry households. The work is comprehensive across genres: fù, shī, sāo (Chǔcí style), diǎncè zhàogào (edicts and proclamations), zòushū biǎozhāng (memorials and petitions), zhēn míng zàn sòng (admonitions, inscriptions, eulogies, hymns), bēi jì, lùn xù, shū qǐ, zázhù — with the editorial principle stated in the imperial preface (composed by Zhōu Bìdà 周必大): “fù shī sāo — the editor sought zhǔ wén ér jué jiàn (frank but tactful)”; “diǎncè zhàogào — wēnhòu ér yǒu tǐ (warm and dignified)”; “zòushū biǎozhāng — liàngzhí ér zhōngài (frank, loyal, loving)”; “zhēnmíng zànsòng — jīngquè ér xiángmíng (precise and detailed)”; and so forth.

Tiyao

Zhōu Bìdà’s preface (translated, summary): “I have heard that the rise and decline of literature depends on qì and the merit and inadequacy of phrasing depends on lǐ. In the time of the ancient emperors, men had cultivation and teaching had no anomalies, so their qì flourished — like water carrying things — and their lǐ was clear — like a candle illuminating things — both small and great, both manifest and hidden penetrated. When the state had any distinguished merit or extraordinary virtue, the high officials down to the common scholars could all rightly array its significance, polish and proclaim it, recorded in the Shū and sung in the Shī, broadly preserved still…”

“Our Yìzǔ (the Founding Ancestor, Sòng Tàizǔ) by nature knew the civil and the military, took the broken-apart realm of the Five Dynasties and unified it; honoured the yǎ and dismissed the fú, urgently working to set down standards and establish teaching. The succeeding sages have continued in one government; the brush-holders have known to honour the Zhōu and Confucius; the talk-roaming have been ashamed to praise Yáng (Zhū) and Mò (Dí). So in two hundred years the heroic men have followed one after another — the greatest have already winged the Six Classics and adorned the institutions of government; the lesser ones have at least chanted their xìngqíng and named themselves a single school. In the Jiànlóng and Yōngxī periods (early Northern Sòng) the literature is grand; in the Xiánpíng and Jǐngdé it is broad; in the Tiānshèng and Míngdào the diction is archaic; in the Xīníng and Yuányòu the diction is fluent. Though the tǐzhì (forms) emerge in turn and the yuánliú (sources and streams) differ, the qì is complete and the lǐ is correct — they all converge. This is not the literature of the Táng, nor of the Hàn — it is in truth the literature of our Sòng — is this not flourishing!”

“His Majesty (Xiàozōng) heaven-given like Confucius, brilliant in literature like Yáo, in moments of leisure from a myriad affairs still toys with the various compositions; thinking that the volumes are numerous and reading them is difficult, he wished to select those of help to the zhìdào (way of governance) and bring them out. He decreed the Zhe-zuò láng Lǚ Zǔqiān to issue forth the storage of the Sānguǎn sìkù and gather the records of the noble houses, cutting from before the Zhōngxìng (the Southern-Sòng revival of 1127), and compile and bring up. Gǔfù shīsāo — seeking the master of meaning and the indirection of remonstrance; diǎncè zhàogào — seeking the warm and yǒutǐ (with dignity); zòushū biǎozhāng — taking the frank and zhōngài (loyal-and-loving); zhēnmíng zànsòng — taking the jīngquè and xiángmíng (precise and detailed); to bēijì lùnxù shūqǐ zázhù — generally those with form-matching-content first; fùzhì bèi (form-and-substance complete) first…”

Abstract

Date: imperial commission Chúnxī 4 (1177); compilation completed ca. Chúnxī 6 (1179); presented to the throne at that time. Zhāng Shì 張栻 famously objected that an imperial Lǐbù shàngshū (Zhōu Bìdà as prefacer and Lǚ Zǔqiān as compiler) should not put their names to such a project — a position the SKQS editors (in the Wànshǒu Tángrén juéjù KR4h0038 tíyào) treat as “piānjiàn” (one-sided).

Three principal claims:

(1) Canonising document of Northern-Sòng literature. The Sòng wénjiàn is the foundational Sòng-period selection of běncháo literature — the basis of all subsequent YuánMíng anthological treatments of Northern-Sòng prose and verse, and the principal Sòng-internal critical statement on the Northern-Sòng canon. Wáng Ānshí, Ōuyáng Xiū, Sū Shì, Sīmǎ Guāng, Zēng Gǒng, Hán Wéi, Méi Yáochén, Fàn Zhòngyān, Wáng Yǔchēng, and the Northern-Sòng gǔwén tradition are represented at substantial scale. The Sū brothers are present (unlike in the Sòng wénxuǎn KR4h0032, which is the pro-Xīnfǎ parallel).

(2) Statement of Lǐxué-influenced editorial criteria. Lǚ Zǔqiān, principal compiler, is one of the foundational Jīnhuá xuépài Confucianists; the editorial criteria stated by Zhōu Bìdà reflect a Lǐxué moral-political evaluation of literary worth: liàngzhí ér zhōngài, wēnhòu ér yǒutǐ, jīngquè ér xiángmíng — all moral-stylistic ideals associated with the Dàoxué movement. The anthology thus represents the Southern-Sòng Lǐxué canonisation of Northern-Sòng literature.

(3) Documentary survival. The book preserves several Northern-Sòng pieces lost from their original collections — including Kǒng Wénzhòng’s zǎoxíng poem (mentioned in the SKQS tíyào to Qīngjiāng sān Kǒng jí KR4h0029) and various memorials and zhìgào by men whose individual biéjí are otherwise incomplete.

The book is companion to the Sòngshǐ jìshì běnmò KR2g0011 and the Sòngshǐ in providing the Southern-Sòng-internal documentary basis for Northern-Sòng history; it is part of the Southern-Sòng Lǐxué programme of textual recovery and canonisation.

Translations and research

• Peter Bol, “This Culture of Ours” (Stanford, 1992) — extensive treatment of the Sòng wén-jiàn as a documentary monument of Northern-Sòng intellectual history.
• Conrad Schirokauer, “Liao Wei and the Compilation of the Sòng wén-jiàn,” in Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies 17 (1981).
• Wang Yu 王宇, Lǚ Zǔ-qiān yánjiū 呂祖謙研究 (Beijing: Rénmín, 2005) — chapter on the Sòng wén-jiàn.
• Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (Cambridge UP, 2021) — extensive use of the Sòng wén-jiàn.
• Zēng Zǎo-zhuāng 曾棗莊, Sòng wén tōng-lùn (Shanghai rénmín, 2008) — comprehensive treatment.

Other points of interest

The book is structurally similar to the Wényuàn yīnghuá KR4h0022 — both are imperially-commissioned 1000-class anthologies of pre-Sòng / Northern-Sòng literature — but is much more selective (150 vs. 1000 juǎn) and more critically organised. The two books together form the pre-1127 Sòng literary canon in its Southern-Sòng court form.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4, §32.
• ctext
• Wikipedia, “Lü Zuqian”