Zhòngmiào jí 眾妙集
Anthology of All the Marvels by 趙師秀
About the work
A one-juǎn anthology of Tang regulated verse (jìntǐ) selected by Zhào Shīxiù 趙師秀 (1170–1219), one of the four Yǒngjiā Sìlíng 永嘉四靈 poets of late Southern Sòng. The book gathers poetry from Shěn Quánqī 沈佺期 to Wáng Zhēnbái 王貞白 — 76 poets in all — without strict chronological order. Approximately 9 out of 10 pieces are five-syllable; only 1 out of 10 is seven-syllable, in line with the Sìlíng poetic preference for kǔyín austere five-character regulated verse over the more decorative seven-character form.
The textual transmission is unusual. The book was not printed by Zhào Shīxiù himself and is not recorded in Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí. It was found in the late-Míng dynasty in manuscript form in the Tú Yòngmíng 屠用明 household of Jiāxìng; passed to Zhào Língjūn 趙靈均 of Hánshān; thence to Féng Bān 馮班 of Chángshú; and eventually to Máo Jìn 毛晉 of Jígǔ gé who first printed it in the late Míng or early Qīng. The SKQS editors decisively reject any suggestion of Míng forgery: the editorial principle (jìntǐ only, mostly five-character, Sìlíng taste) is so precisely consistent with Zhào Shīxiù’s own Qīngyuànzhāi jí KR4c0210 that a Míng forger could not have replicated it so consistently.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Zhòngmiào jí in 1 juǎn — edited by Sòng’s Zhào Shīxiù. Shīxiù’s Qīngyuànzhāi jí is separately catalogued. This is his record of Táng-period wǔyán and qīyán lǜshī: from Shěn Quánqī to Wáng Zhēnbái, 76 men in all, without careful chronological order. Five-syllable pieces are 9 out of 10; seven-syllable only 1 out of 10.
Shīxiù’s own poetry mostly traces back to the Wǔgōng yī pài (Yáo Hé’s Wǔgōng school), and his yìjìng is rather narrow. But this anthology takes fēngdù liúlì (graceful and fluent style) as its standard; mostly close to the ZhōngTáng register. Féng Bān’s Cáidiào jí fánlì says: “He took only famous lines” — not quite accurate.
Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí does not record the book. The present text emerged in the late Míng from the Jiāxìng Tú Yòngmíng household; Hánshān Zhào Língjūn transmitted it to Chángshú Féng Bān; Bān entrusted it to Máo Jìn, who cut it and it first circulated. The book emerged late, so the tányì (those who discuss the craft) seldom mention it. Yet its take-or-leave certainly has fǎdù (rule), and it does not resemble the Míng impostors’ work. Perhaps Zhào at the time casually selected for his own chanting and did not intend to fix it as a single book, so there are no prefatory and colophonary notes, and it was never printed for circulation — only those who transmitted his shīfǎ (poetic method) copied it back and forth; fortunately it survives to us. Looking at: it has jìntǐ and no gǔtǐ; mostly five-syllable and few seven-syllable — certainly the ménjìng (entry-gate) of the Sìlíng; with the complete jí it can be mutually verified. The late-Míng fabricators cannot have so finely conformed to this. Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date: undatable precisely; falls between Zhào Shīxiù’s jìnshì of Shàoxī 1 (1190) and his death in Jiādìng 12 (1219). The catalog meta’s date of 1190 is conventional. The book was not published in Zhào’s lifetime; the late-Míng manuscript-recovery and Máo Jìn print are the proximate ancestors of the WYG copy.
Significance:
(1) Poetics statement of the Sìlíng. The Zhòngmiào jí is the principal anthology-form articulation of the Yǒngjiā Sìlíng poetic programme: the revival of the late-Tang Wǔgōng tǐ / Jiǎ Dǎo–Yáo Hé kǔyín tradition in late-Sòng Yǒngjiā. Zhào’s own collection Qīngyuànzhāi jí KR4c0210 is the practice-side document; this anthology is the canon-formation document, showing which Tang poets the Sìlíng programme drew on.
(2) A documentary witness to late-Sòng critical taste. The exclusion of gǔtǐ (ancient-style) and the heavy weighting toward wǔyán lǜshī document a specific late-Sòng aesthetic of restraint: emphasising fēngdù liúlì (graceful fluency) over decorative or grand styles. The 76-poet selection is the canonical Sìlíng Tang canon.
(3) A late-discovery and Qīng-recovery case. The book’s textual transmission — not in the SòngYuán catalogues, recovered from a late-Míng manuscript, printed by Máo Jìn — is one of the principal examples of how Qīng-period editors recovered Southern-Sòng-internal sources that the YuánMíng critical tradition had bypassed. Féng Bān’s role and the TúZhàoFéngMáo transmission chain are themselves documentary materials in the history of Qīng kǎozhèng.
Translations and research
- Michael A. Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes: Southern Song Dynasty Poetry and the Problem of Literary History (Harvard Asia Center, 2013) — comprehensive treatment of the Yǒng-jiā Sì-líng and their reception.
- Stephen Owen, The Late Tang (Harvard, 2006) — provides the Tang background that the Sì-líng canonised.
- Mò Lì-fēng 莫礪鋒, Jiāng-xī shī-pài yánjiū — the Sì-líng as the Southern Sòng’s anti-Jiāngxī school.
- Liú Xiào-bīn 劉曉斌, Yǒng-jiā Sì-líng yánjiū 永嘉四靈研究 (Beijing: Rénmín wénxué, 2008).
Other points of interest
The book’s status as the canonical Sìlíng Tang canon has made it a recurring point of reference in modern reception studies of late-Sòng poetics. Stephen Owen and others have used it to reconstruct what late-Sòng poets actually read from the Tang corpus, as distinct from what scholars assume they should have read.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.3, §31.4.
- ctext