Gǔwén guānjiàn 古文關鍵
Key Passes of Ancient Prose by 呂祖謙
About the work
A two-juǎn Southern-Sòng pedagogical anthology of gǔwén compiled by Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 (1137–1181). The book gathers approximately 60 pieces by the seven canonical gǔwén masters — Hán Yù 韓愈, Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元, Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修, Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏, Sū Xún 蘇洵, Sū Shì 蘇軾, Zhāng Lěi 張耒 — each accompanied by Lǚ’s marginal markings and brief evaluative notes indicating mìngyì (intent), bùjú (structure), and zhāngfǎ (pacing). It is the earliest surviving Chinese rhetorical anthology of the gǔwén canon and the founding document of the píngdiǎn 評點 (“comment-and-mark”) critical tradition that becomes dominant in late-Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and Qīng pedagogical practice. The opening Zǒnglùn kànwén zuòwén zhī fǎ (general discourse on reading and writing prose) is the principal Sòng-period theoretical statement of gǔwén rhetoric.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Gǔwén guānjiàn in 2 juǎn — edited by Sòng’s Lǚ Zǔqiān. Taking the prose of Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán, Ōuyáng Xiū, Zēng Gǒng, Sū Xún, Sū Shì, and Zhāng Lěi — 60+ pieces in all — each piece is marked at the points of mìngyì (intent-setting) and bùjú (structural arrangement), showing the student the entry-gate; thence the title Guānjiàn (“key passes”). At the head of the book is the general kànwén zuòwén zhī fǎ.
In the Sòngshǐ yìwénzhì the work is listed as 12 juǎn; the present juǎn-head section “Kàn zhūjiā wénfǎ” mentions Wáng Ānshí, Sū Zhé, Lǐ Zhì, Qín Guān, Cháo Bǔzhī etc. in its critical discussion — yet none of their pieces is in fact included. This suggests the present text is not the complete book. But Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records 2 juǎn, matching the present text; the families discussed match too. So the complete book really is just this. The Sòngzhì number 12 is a careless error — most likely an erroneous extra “shí” 十.
This text is a Míng Jiājìng reprint, with a preface by Zhèng Fèngxiáng 鄭鳳翔**. There is another print with marginal gōumǒ 鈎抹 (cross-out marks) — same critical text. Chén Zhènsūn notes that “biāomǒ with annotations is for instructing beginners” — so the original really had the marks. The present text omits them: the cutters of the block, not understanding that Sòng-period reading marked critical points with mǒ (cross-outs) rather than with the modern quāndiǎn (circle-and-dot) system, took the marks for noise and removed them.
Yè Shèng’s Shuǐdōng rìjì says: “Sòng-儒 pīxuǎn (critical selection) literature — first there is Lǚ Dōnglái (Zǔqiān); next Lóu Yūzhāi (Lóu Yuē 樓鑰), Zhōu Yìnglóng; next Xiè Diéshān (Xiè Fāngdé 謝枋得 KR4h0059). Zhūzǐ once criticised Dōnglái as ‘bound to the cage.’ But on balance the pīxuǎn and yìlùn is not without benefit; it is one branch of jiǎngxué (Confucian instruction).” Yet Lǚ Zǔqiān’s book is in fact made for lùnwén (rhetoric) and not for jiǎngxué — Yè Shèng’s “Wénzhāng zhèngzōng zhī píng” is to a different book (the Wénzhāng zhèngzōng KR4h0046 by Zhēn Déxiù), not to this one. Reverently submitted, fifth month of Qiánlóng 42 (1777). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date: by Lǚ Zǔqiān’s biography, the Gǔwén guānjiàn was likely compiled in the years between Chúnxī 2 (1175) and his death in Chúnxī 8 (1181). The book belongs to Lǚ’s final period at Jīnhuá, the years of his most active Lǐxué and rhetorical pedagogy.
Significance:
(1) Foundational document of Chinese rhetorical pedagogy. The Gǔwén guānjiàn establishes the gǔwén bājiā (Eight Masters of Tang and Song Prose) — Hán, Liǔ, Ōuyáng, Zēng, the Three Sūs, Wáng Ānshí, plus Zhāng Lěi — as the canonical curriculum (though the canonical “Eight Masters” formulation is a Míng codification; Lǚ’s selection is closely related but adjusted). The book is the principal Southern-Sòng pedagogical statement of the gǔwén canon as instructional material.
(2) Beginning of the píngdiǎn tradition. The marginal-marking method (biāomǒ) that Lǚ used became, through subsequent compilers (Lóu Yuē, Xiè Fāngdé, Liú Chénwēng, Zhū Yìngdēng), the dominant Chinese rhetorical-pedagogical method — culminating in the MíngQīng píngdiǎn xiǎoshuō (commented-fiction) tradition (Jīn Shèngtàn etc.).
(3) Theoretical statement. The opening Zǒnglùn — translated and analysed by Wáng Yùnwǔ and others — is the principal Sòng-period theoretical statement of gǔwén rhetoric: how to assess intent, how to read for structure, how to plot transitions, how to identify guānjiàn (key passes).
The book directly preceded and underlies Zhēn Déxiù’s Wénzhāng zhèngzōng KR4h0046 (the Lǐxué anthology of gǔwén with stricter moral criteria), Lóu Fǎng’s Chónggǔ wénjué KR4h0044 (a more pedagogical variant), and Xiè Fāngdé’s Wénzhāng guǐfàn KR4h0059 (the late Southern-Sòng pedagogical successor). The guānjiàn tradition is the literary-pedagogical parallel to the Sòng Lǐxué canon-forming.
Translations and research
- Ronald Egan, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (Cambridge UP, 1984) — uses the Guān-jiàn readings.
- Anthony DeBlasi, Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China (SUNY, 2002) — Tang antecedents of the gǔ-wén canon as Sòng pedagogy.
- Peter Bol, “This Culture of Ours” (Stanford, 1992) — Lǚ Zǔ-qiān as a gǔ-wén pedagogue.
- Charles Hartman, Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity (Princeton, 1986) — Sòng canonising of Hán Yù.
- Zhāng Bóqiáng 張伯強, Lǚ Zǔ-qiān wén-xué sī-xiǎng yánjiū 呂祖謙文學思想研究 (Beijing: Rénmín wénxué, 2009).
Other points of interest
The marginal marking method survives in some SòngYuán block-prints (particularly Yè Shèng’s Shuǐdōng rìjì reports), but is lost from the WYG copy used for the Sìkù. Modern scholarship has begun to reconstruct the marking system from contemporary references; the Gǔwén guānjiàn is the central document of that reconstruction.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4 (Sòng literary criticism).
- ctext