Miàojué gǔjīn 妙絕古今
Sublime Pieces of Ancient and Modern Literature by 湯漢
About the work
A four-juǎn late-Southern-Sòng critical anthology of gǔwén compiled by Tāng Hàn 湯漢 (zì Bójì, hào Dōngjiàn, 1202–1272) in Chúnyòu 2 (1242), while still out of office. The book gathers 79 pieces by 21 writers from the Zuǒzhuàn (Spring-and-Autumn era) through Sū Shì (Northern Sòng), selected for their highest literary attainment — hence the title Miàojué (“matchless / sublime”). The selection is unusual:
- “Dài bù shù rén, rén bù shù shǒu” — “Each generation has only a few hands; each hand only a few pieces” — Tāng’s own preface emphasises radical selectivity.
- Pieces include passages from the Zuǒzhuàn, the Zhànguó cè, Qū Yuán’s Lí Sāo-related works, Yuè Yì’s letters, the writings of Hán Yù (Sòng Mèng Dōngyě xù), Ōuyáng Xiū (the Sū Zǐměi jí xù), and Sū Shì.
The book was reprinted in Jiājìng yǐmǎo (1555) by the NánGàn xúnfǔ Tán Kǎi 談愷 with a preface; Wáng Tínggān 王廷榦, prefect of Nán’ān, wrote a colophon. The original compiler was unknown to the Ming editors; Qián-dynasty Zhào Fāng 趙汸’s Dōngshān cúngǎo identifies him as Tāng Hàn — establishing the attribution that the SKQS editors accept.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Miàojué gǔjīn in 4 juǎn — original text without compiler-attribution. Before is the Jiājìng yǐmǎo (1555) preface by Tán Kǎi, NánGàn xúnfǔ; after is a colophon by Wáng Tínggān, Nán’ān prefect — both say it is a Sòng-period selection but did not know the compiler’s name. The Sòngshǐ yìwénzhì also lacks it. By examination of Yuán Zhào Fāng’s Dōngshān cúngǎo, this is the compilation of Tāng Hàn. Hàn’s Dōngjiàn yíjí KR4c0252 is separately catalogued.
The work selects gǔwén from the Zuǒzhuàn down to Méishān Sū: 21 hands and 79 pieces. The juǎn-head preface signed “Dōngjiàn shū” is Tāng’s self-preface; the preface signed “Zǐxiá lǎorén” is Zhào Rǔténg’s title. Zhào Fāng says: “I once saw ‘Bóyáng Mǎgōng wén (i.e., Mǎ Tíngluán 馬廷鸞)’ had a Miàojué gǔjīn xù; later in the book-shop I saw this book, but the juǎn-head did not carry Mǎgōng’s preface*” — and the present text indeed has none. Mǎ Tíngluán’s Bìwú wánfāng jí is already lost; only a few pieces remain in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn; there is no longer a copy of this preface; it is long lost.
The book has very few writers per generation and very few pieces per writer; it cannot comprehensively cover ancient and modern writers. Zhào Fāng says: “Mǎgōng’s words suggest he found no interest in it.” But Zhào Fāng — by reasoning from the Sòng-period decline and Tāng Hàn’s career — comments: “*The Southern-Dù endured the shame and served the enemy; Lǐzōng harboured villains and disrupted government — so Tāng took the Zuǒzhuàn and Guócè episodes to satirise and encourage; and reached the HànTáng dynasties’ rise-and-fall causes; and again selected Qū Yuán, Yuè Yì, Hán Yù’s Sòng Mèng Dōngyě xù, Ōuyáng Xiū’s Sū Zǐměi jí xù and the like — pieces feeling that scholars are not employed, and again sending them back to the Way, so they might know their own re-examination. In his take-or-leave, each piece has deep meaning, on which he composed an yǐfāmíngzhī (illuminating note) over a thousand-four-hundred characters, and Tāng’s authorial intent is then made manifest. Those who criticise it for being too brief have not understood its time.” In the book there are also brief evaluative notes — also from Tāng’s original. The self-preface dates rényín — i.e., Chúnyòu 2 (1242) [note: actually Chúnyòu 1 was xīnchǒu and Chúnyòu 2 = rényín, so the SKQS editors’ “Chúnyòu yuánnián” appears to be in error] — when Tāng was still not in office. Reverently submitted, eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
The second preface by Zhào Rǔténg (signed Zǐxiá lǎorén) is dated Bǎoyòu 5 (1257, dīngsì) 3rd month: “Bójì (Tāng Hàn) carries unusual talent and goes among the gentlemen — the Mìjiàn Master Chái (Zhōngxíng) respects his conduct, Master Xīshān Zhēn (Déxiù) takes his learning, Master Nántáng Zhào (Rǔténg’s own?) marvels at his writing. Once when I was Jiāngdōng xiànshǐ in my spare time, I drew him to my office and discussed all day long, and so received this collection — every piece in the words of all the elders. Each weight measured to the last grain, every hair distinguished — surpassing the selection of Liáng Tǒng 梁統 (Hàn?) and going beyond it: precise indeed. Yet — that which is precise in words is the vessel of Dào; the Six Classics are the primal qì…”
Abstract
Date: the self-preface is Chúnyòu 2 (1242, rényín); the Zhào Rǔténg (Zǐxiá lǎorén) preface added later in Bǎoyòu 5 (1257); the book reached its final transmitted form in the late Southern Sòng. The Míng Jiājìng 34 (1555) reprint by Tán Kǎi is the proximate textual ancestor of the WYG copy.
Significance:
(1) A late-Southern-Sòng critical statement of moral-political reading of literature. Zhào Fāng’s Yuán-period analysis (preserved through the Dōngshān cúngǎo and quoted by the SKQS editors) reads the Miàojué gǔjīn as a deliberate moral-political document — an allusive critique of Lǐzōng’s late-Sòng failure to resist the Mongols and of his court’s corruption. The selected pieces — the Zuǒzhuàn episodes on national shame, the Han-Tang dynastic-failure analyses, the QūYuán / YuèYì voices of frustrated loyalty — are read as Tāng’s coded protest. This is one of the principal Southern-Sòng cases of an anthology serving as veiled political commentary.
(2) A píngdiǎn and tíhòu anthology in the LǚLóu tradition. The book continues the píngdiǎn method established by Lǚ Zǔqiān’s Gǔwén guānjiàn KR4h0041 and Lóu Fǎng’s Chónggǔ wénjué KR4h0044: each piece is accompanied by a tíhòu (post-text note) elaborating the meaning. Tāng’s tíhòu total ~1,400 characters — substantial pedagogical apparatus.
(3) A documentary witness to literary friendship. The Zhào Rǔténg preface and the lost Mǎ Tíngluán preface frame Tāng Hàn’s compilation within a late-Sòng Dàoxué network (Chái Zhōngxíng, Zhēn Déxiù, Zhào Rǔténg) that the SKQS editors are at pains to document. The book is part of the late Southern-Sòng Lǐxué literary canon.
Translations and research
- Peter Bol, “This Culture of Ours” (Stanford, 1992).
- Conrad Schirokauer, “Chu Hsi’s Sense of History,” in Ordering the World (Univ. of California Press, 1993) — Sòng historical sensibility.
- Wáng Shuǐ-zhào 王水照, Sòng-dài wénxué tōng-lùn — Tāng Hàn and the late-Sòng anthology tradition.
- Yáng Xī-fáng 楊新放, “Miào-jué gǔ-jīn yánjiū,” Wénxué yíchǎn 文學遺產 2010.4.
Other points of interest
Tāng Hàn’s evidently politically-loaded selection makes the Miàojué gǔjīn an unusual late-Sòng case where the historiographical interpretation by a Yuán Confucian (Zhào Fāng) supplied the canonical reading-frame for a Sòng-period book. Without Zhào Fāng’s analysis the book would seem an arbitrarily-brief selection; with it, the book becomes a critical document. The SKQS editors’ quotation of Zhào Fāng at length is itself notable as a Qīng-court endorsement of Zhào’s reading.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4, §32.
- ctext