Yuèquán yínshè shī 月泉吟社詩
Poems of the Moon-Spring Chanting Society by 吳渭
About the work
A 1-juǎn documentary record of the Yuèquán yínshè 月泉吟社 (“Moon-Spring Chanting Society”) — the largest Sòng-loyalist poetry contest of the early Yuán, organised in Zhìyuán 23–24 (1286–1287) by Wú Wèi (吳渭) of Pújiāng 浦江 (Jīnhuá, Zhèjiāng), late Sòng magistrate of Yìwū 義烏 turned yímín. Wú issued the topic Chūnrì tiányuán záxīng 春日田園雜興 (“Mixed Inspirations on Spring-Day Farm-Garden” — after Fàn Chéngdà’s well-known series) in the tenth month of 1286, restricted entries to wǔ- and qīyán lǜshī form, and harvested submissions by the Lantern Festival of 1287. The judges were Fāng Fèng (方鳳), Xiè Áo (謝翱), and Wú Sīqí (吳思齊) — all yímín of the first water. 2,735 juǎn were submitted, 280 selected, and posted on the third day of the third month. The transmitted text preserves the first 60 entries — 74 poems — together with a 32-couplet 句圖 (jùtú) excerpting outstanding couplets, the 社約 (society pact), 題意 (topic explication), 誓文 (oath), and 詩評 (critical apparatus). Authors entered under pseudonyms (yùmíng 寓名); the first-ranked Liǎn Wénfèng 連文鳳 (a former Sòng-officer poet) used the pen-name Luó Gōngfú 羅公福. The SKQS editors observe that the surviving text is abridged (jiélù), not the complete original. The 60 names form a unique sociological cross-section of the literate Sòng remnant gentry of southern Zhèjiāng, southern Jiāngsū, and northern Fújiàn — and the verse, the SKQS editors note, registers the recurring yímín tropes of “listening to the cuckoo” (tīng dùjuān) and “eating wēijué” (cān wēijué — Bóyí-and-Shū-qí’s mountain herbs).
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Yuèquán yínshè shī in 1 juǎn. The Sòng Wú Wèi compiled it. Wú Wèi, zì Qīngwēng, sobriquet Qiánzhāi, was a man of Pújiāng; he had held office as Magistrate of Yìwū. After entering the Yuán he retired to dwell at Wúxī and established the Yuèquán yínshè. Between the bǐngxū (1286) and dīnghài (1287) years of Zhìyuán he set the contest topic Chūnrì tiányuán záxīng, restricted to wǔ- and qīyán regulated-verse, releasing the topic in the tenth month before, and collecting juǎn the following year at the Shàngyuán (Lantern Festival). 2,735 juǎn in all were collected. He invited Fāng Fèng, Xiè Áo, Wú Sīqí to grade their jiǎ and yǐ, and in all selected 280 persons, putting up the announcement on the 3rd day of the 3rd month.
This present book only carries the first 60 — together 74 poems — plus a jùtú (couplet-list) appendix of 32 couplets, the 18th of which has lost the author’s name. This is plainly a later abridgement (jiélù), not the complete book.
The poets all use yùmíng (pen-names) with the real name annotated below — for example, the first-named Liǎn Wénfèng is called “Luó Gōngfú”, etc. The intent is unclear: were the judges suppressing names at marking time, perhaps showing impartial-judgment by means of pen-name as a substitute for the sealing of the name [hùmíng] in examinations?
The head of the book carries the Shèyuē (society pact), the Tíyì (topic explication), the Shìwén (oath), and the Shīpíng (poetry critique); next, the 60 persons’ poems each with critical comment; next the Zhāijù (excerpted couplets); next the Shǎnggé (award-tier list), the Sòngshǎng qǐ (Letter Conveying the Award), and finally the various replies of the awardees — all also abridged. The poets are mostly Sòng yílǎo (left-over old men), so many of them embed dùnshì (world-retreat) feeling, and lines of tīng dùjuān (listening to the cuckoo) and cān wēijué (eating wēijué herbs) [the loyalist tropes].
Wáng Shìzhēn’s Chíběi ǒután 池北偶談 praises it as “qīngxīn jiānkè” (fresh-and-pungent), “a school of its own”; but he disapproves of the rank-order and re-ranks them: making No. 6 Zǐjìn (子進) No. 1; No. 13 Wèi Zǐdà (魏子大) No. 2; No. 9 Quánquánwēng (全泉翁) No. 3; No. 5 Shānnán yǐnyì (山南隱逸) No. 4; No. 15 Nièyún (躡雲) No. 5; No. 4 Xiāncūnrén (仙村人) No. 6; No. 11 Fāng Shǎng (方賞) No. 7; No. 3 Gāo Níng (髙寜) No. 8; No. 42 Yú Zìdé (俞自得) No. 9; No. 25 Huáikōng jūshì (槐空居士) No. 10; No. 43 Dōnghú sǎnrén (東湖散人) No. 11; No. 37 Xú Duānfǔ (徐端甫) No. 12; No. 44 Qiú Jìncūn (仇近村) No. 13; No. 31 Chén Xīshào (陳希邵) No. 14; No. 53 Zǐzhí (子直) No. 15; No. 2 Sīmǎ Chéngwēng (司馬澄翁) No. 16; No. 45 Chén Wěisūn (陳緯孫) No. 17; No. 51 Wénrén Zhòngbó (聞人仲伯) No. 18; No. 59 Jūnruì (君瑞) No. 19; No. 17 Tián Qǐdōng (田起東) No. 20; and No. 1 Luó Gōngfú to No. 21. However the verses are stylistically all-of-a-piece without sharp superiority — what Shìzhēn moved and what FāngFèng et al fixed are each only the favorite of a moment; we cannot see that the one must be right and the other wrong.
Lǐ Dōngyáng’s Huáilùtáng shīhuà says: “At the end of Yuán and the beginning of our Dynasty [Míng], the literati of the south-east valued poetry societies. Each time someone wealthy hosted, they invited poets as graders; the topic was sealed the year before and circulated among the poetry-capable of various prefectures, with a deadline of the following spring to gather the juǎn; private testing, opening the announcement and ranking names, then printing the best — much like the examination system. In what is transmitted to today, only Pújiāng Wú’s Yuèquán yínshè, which took Luó Gōngfú as first, [is preserved]; what it prints aims at peace-temperate-warm-thick, with no particularly piercing pieces — yet within the juǎn there is also nothing to surpass it.” Thus what Fāng Fèng et al fixed was assented to by Dōngyáng.
Reverently submitted, ninth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date and provenance. The contest itself ran from the tenth month of Zhìyuán 23 (1286) to the Shàngsì festival of Zhìyuán 24 (1287). The original print run included a 16-juǎn contest record in the family seat at Pújiāng; that complete recension was lost. The 1-juǎn surviving text is a later abridgement — Pú-jiāng-man Wú Wèi’s descendant Wú Kèwén 吳克文 obtained a remnant in Zhèngtǒng 10 (1445) through the Jīnhuá scholar Qián Shìyuān 錢世淵, and reprinted it with a fresh preface by the long-history Yìmén Zhèng Kǎi 鄭楷.
Significance. This is the only documentary witness to the early-Yuán yímín poetry-society institution as a competitive social form. Lǐ Dōngyáng’s Huáilùtáng shīhuà (Míng) reports that the institution flourished broadly in the late-Yuán / early-Míng south-east, but that only the Yuèquán yínshè record had survived to his day (c. 1500). This single witness is therefore irreplaceable for understanding:
(1) The social mechanics of yímín poetry. The society pact (shèyuē), oath (shìwén), and award protocols make explicit the half-private, half-public character of Sòng-loyalist literary association under Yuán rule.
(2) The poetics of agrarian retreat. The topic Chūnrì tiányuán záxīng — chosen by Wú Wèi after Fàn Chéngdà — established TáoQián / FànChéngdà rural retreat as the canonical yímín mood, in pointed contrast to the courtly shǔfèng (frost-and-wind) tropes of Yuán-court poetry.
(3) Pseudonymous authorship. The 60 surviving entries — under fanciful pen-names — preserve voices that the regular biographical record loses. Liǎn Wénfèng 連文鳳 (the first-place “Luó Gōngfú” 羅公福) is a representative case: a known Sòng poet who could only publish under disguise.
Critical reception. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎 (Chíběi ǒután) praised the collection’s “qīngxīn jiānkè” (fresh-and-pungent) tone but disputed the rank order, proposing his own re-ranking of the top 21. The SKQS editors decline to adjudicate the difference, observing that the entries are of comparable quality and that judgement reflects the critic’s moment. Lǐ Dōngyáng (Míng) had already ratified the original ranking in the Huáilùtáng shīhuà.
Translations and research
- Jennifer W. Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1991) — chapter-length treatment of the Yuè-quán yín-shè as Sòng-yí-mín literary institution.
- 方勇 Fāng Yǒng, Nán-Sòng yí-mín shī-rén qún-tǐ yán-jiū 南宋遺民詩人羣體研究 (Beijing, 2000) — sociological study of yí-mín poetic networks, with Yuè-quán as its centrepiece.
- 張宏生 Zhāng Hóngshēng, Jiāng-hú shī-pài yán-jiū 江湖詩派研究 (Beijing, 1995) — context within the Sòng commercial-poetic milieu.
- 周明初 Zhōu Míngchū, Yuè-quán yín-shè yán-jiū — focused monograph (Hangzhou, 2003).
Other points of interest
The society pact (shèyuē) itself, preserved at the head of the juǎn, is the most explicit early-Chinese statement of literary-society governance: it sets the topic, fixes the form, names the judges, schedules submission and judgement, and details the award system. It is the documentary anchor for all subsequent discussion of late-imperial shīshè and wénshè (poetry- and prose-societies), which would become a defining feature of MíngQīng literary life.