Zhōngzhōu jí 中州集
Anthology of the Central Plains by 元好問
About the work
The 10-juǎn (+1-juǎn appended Zhōngzhōu yuèfǔ 中州樂府 cí-anthology) definitive anthology of Jīn-dynasty poetry, compiled by Yuán Hǎowèn (元好問, 1190–1257). The transmitted text is also known as the Hànyuàn yīnghuá Zhōngzhōu jí 翰苑英華中州集 in the SBCK recension. It records 109 Jīn poets organised in ten jí named with the tiāngān (Heavenly Stems) — jiǎ through guǐ — plus two opening pieces by the Jīn Xiǎnzōng (1 poem) and Zhāngzōng (1 poem) outside the juǎn-count, headed Shèngzhì (Imperial Composition). The Sìkù editors note that the Xīnjí table of contents signals a fresh start with new pagination — perhaps indicating that juǎn 1–7 were the zhèngjí (Original Collection) and juǎn 7–10 a xùjí (Continued Collection). Rénjí opens with Mǎ Shùn 馬舜 and gives separate sections for zhūxiàng (chancellors, 16 entries — including the controversial Liú Yù 劉豫, the puppet emperor of Qí), zhuàngyuán (first-place graduates, 8 entries), yìrén (eccentrics, 4 entries — including Wáng Zhōnglì 王中立), and yǐndé (hidden-virtue figures, 4 entries — including Xuē Jìxiān 薛繼先, Sòng Kě 宋可, Zhāng Qián 張潛, Cáo Jué 曹珏). Guǐjí contains zhījǐ (Close Friends — Xīn Yuàn 辛愿, Lǐ Fén 李汾, Lǐ Xiànfǔ 李獻甫) and Nánguān (Southern-Cap, i.e. Sòng captives in Jīn — Sīmǎ Pǔ 司馬朴, Téng Màoshí 滕茂實, Hé Hóngzhōng 何宏中, Yáo Xiàoxī 姚孝錫, Zhū Biàn 朱弁), with the Sòng yímín Zhào Zī 趙滋 and Yuán Hǎowèn’s own father and brother appended at the end. Yuán’s self-preface is dated guǐsì (1233) — the second year of Tiānxīng — the year the Jīn capital Kāifēng was besieged. The work was begun in Liáochéng in 1234 (after the Mongol capture of Kāifēng), continued through Yuán’s twenty-three-year-long retreat, and finished in his final years. Each poet’s section opens with a detailed biographical sketch (xiǎozhuàn) with critical assessment of the verse — a methodological innovation. The work prioritises history-via-poetry: Yuán deliberately gathers Jīn poets whose biographies have left thin record, providing the principal documentary basis for what later became the Jīnshǐ literary biographies.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Zhōngzhōu jí in 10 juǎn. The Jīn Yuán Hǎowèn compiled it. Hǎowèn has the Xù Yíjiān zhì already on record (see KR3l0026). This collection records the poetry of one Jīn dynasty. It opens by recording two poems by Xiǎnzōng and one poem by Zhāngzōng — not counted in the juǎn count. The rest is divided into ten collections, marked by the ten tiāngān. The Xīnjí table of contents has its annotation starting from two characters apart [signalling a fresh division]; its persons also begin again at the start of the Jīn dynasty — so it would seem that before juǎn 7 is the zhèngjí (Original) and after juǎn 7 the xùjí (Continued). The Rénjí from Mǎ Shùn downward separately marks the zhūxiàng section, listing Liú Yù and 16 men; the zhuàngyuán section, listing Zhèng Zǐníng 鄭子寜 et al. 8 men; the yìrén section, listing Wáng Zhōnglì et al. 4 men; the yǐndé section, listing Xuē Jìxiān, Sòng Kě, Zhāng Qián, Cáo Jué — 4 men — record. But singularly names only Jìxiān; suspected to be a transcription-elision. Guǐjí lists 3 zhījǐ (Close Friends): Xīn Yuàn, Lǐ Fén, Lǐ Xiànfǔ. Nánguān (Southern-Cap, i.e. Sòng-side prisoners) 5 men: Sīmǎ Pǔ, Téng Màoshí, Hé Hóngzhōng, Yáo Xiàoxī, Zhū Biàn. With Sòng yímín Zhào Zī and Hǎowèn’s father and brother’s poems appended at the end.
Before, Hǎowèn’s own preface says Wèi Dàomíng wrote the Bǎijiā shīlüè; Shāng Héng supplemented it; Hǎowèn then added what he himself had recorded — to make this book. The preface is dated guǐsì — Āizōng Tiānxīng 2 (1233). His principle: for each man, separately make a xiǎozhuàn (small biography), giving full beginnings and ends; and at the same time evaluate his poetry. Sometimes one biography brings several persons together with [the principal] — for example, in Yǐjí under Zhāng Zǐyǔ, attached are the monk Kědào, Xiānyú Kěgāo, the quán (kestrel) Wáng Jǐnghuī, and Wú Yǎn; or other compositions are attached, as in Bǐngjí under Dǎng Huáiyīng, the Zhū Yǒngtāo edict is appended; or other matters are touched on, as in Yǐjí under Zhù Jiǎn the discussion Lùn Wáng Zhū bùzhù Dùshī is appended. The main intent is to borrow poetry for the preservation of history; hence the side-and-oblique appearances, not consistent in form.
At Rénjí’s Jiǎ Yìqiān entry — there is recorded his testimony: that in the 30 years of Shìzōng’s Dàdìng reign, “any who could expose Hǎilíng’s hidden evils, would obtain fine office; the historians, in compiling the Shílù, falsely accused him of being lewd-poisonous-violent-fierce, his stink lasting forever — now seen, a hundred-to-one of it is uncredible. Again — Wèiwáng’s frugality, his attentive-care of míngqì (vessels of name-and-rank), if compared to his other acts, the zhōngcái (middling-talent) man could not reach” — passages like these especially preserve the public discussion of an entire dynasty.
Wáng Shìzhēn’s Chíběi ǒután once argued that the entry on Cài Sōngnián is not free from qūbǐ (crooked-brush). Yet this is báibì zhī xiá (the flaw on the white jade) — not enough to burden the whole body. Only the bold-character recording of Liú Yù’s state-name and reign-year is somewhat against the rule of historiography. But Yù’s establishment of a state was actually commanded by the Jīn court; Hǎowèn was a Jīn-dynasty subject — appropriate to use internal-court vocabulary (nèicí) — by no means could he simply omit it. Nor can this be held against him.
His selection of poems is extremely refined-and-careful — actually superior to the various Jiānghú schools of the late Sòng. Hence the postscript-poem at the end of the juǎn — including the lines “Ruò cóng huáshí píng shīpǐn, wèi biàn Wúnóng dé jǐnpáo” (“If one ranks poems by florid-fruit, our Wú-fellows can never get the brocade-robe”) and “Běirén bù shí Jiāngxī tuò, wèi yào Zēngláng jiè chǐyá” (“Northern men do not pick up Jiāngxī’s spittle; do not need to borrow Mr. Zēng’s teeth”). Shìzhēn was deeply dissatisfied — perhaps because of ménhù bùtóng (different schools)?
After the book is appended the Zhōngzhōu yuèfǔ in 1 juǎn — both this and the present collection were printed by Máo Jìn. At the end of each juǎn is a bá by Jìn, which says: “When I first printed the Zhōngzhōu jí, I lost the yuèfǔ; later I got the yuèfǔ held by Lù Shēn’s house; only then it was completed.” Now investigating: within the collection’s xiǎozhuàn, all of them concurrently evaluate the man’s yuèfǔ — this is firm proof that the yuèfǔ was originally combined with the Zhōngzhōu jí as a single book. Today we still follow the old recension’s order and do not separately enter [the yuèfǔ] in the cíqū category.
Abstract
Date. Begun 1233 (self-preface) at Liáochéng during Yuán Hǎowèn’s captivity in the Yán Shí family compound after the Mongol capture of Kāifēng. Compiled over the last 23 years of Yuán’s life and finished by his death in 1257. Yuán Hǎowèn’s purpose was explicitly historical: to preserve Jīn culture, biography, and verse against the destruction of the Mongol conquest.
Significance. (1) The single most important source for Jīn dynastic literature and biography. All later studies of Jīn poetry, all Jīn-period biographical reconstructions, and the Jīnshǐ Wényì zhuàn itself draw heavily on the Zhōngzhōu jí. Without it, the Jīn would be a literary near-blank.
(2) Methodological innovation: yǐ shī cún shǐ (using poetry to preserve history). Yuán’s pairing of poem-selection with biographical-evaluation became the canonical anthology format for ethnically-or-politically-marginal traditions: Qián Qiānyì’s Liècháo shījí, Zhū Yízūn’s Míngshī zōng, and many others descended methodologically from the Zhōngzhōu jí.
(3) SòngJīn parity argument. By including Nánguān (Sòng captives held in Jīn) and the Sòng yímín Zhào Zī alongside the Jīn poets, Yuán argues implicitly for Jīn legitimacy as a cultural inheritor of the Chinese tradition — over against the Sòng claim that the Jīn was barbarian. The closing self-poem lines on not borrowing the Jiāngxī school’s teeth are a defiant pronouncement of independent Jīn poetic identity.
The Liú Yù controversy. Yuán’s recording of the puppet Qí dynasty’s reign-titles as ordinary historical fact has been criticised throughout the post-Sòng tradition (Wáng Shìzhēn explicitly). The SKQS editors defend the choice on the grounds that Yuán was a Jīn subject and Liú Yù was a Jīn-appointed king — internally legitimate. The argument exemplifies the editors’ historicist sympathy for non-Hàn Chinese-cultural dynasties.
Translations and research
- Stephen West, Vaudeville and Narrative: Aspects of Chin Theater — Jīn-period literary milieu.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman & Stephen West (eds.), China Under Jurchen Rule (Albany, 1995) — multiple essays on Jīn culture and Yuán Hǎo-wèn.
- John Timothy Wixted, Poems on Poetry: Literary Criticism by Yuan Hao-wen (Wiesbaden, 1982) — focused study of Yuán’s Lùn-shī jué-jù.
- 詹杭倫 Zhān Háng-lún, Yuán Hǎo-wèn yán-jiū — comprehensive Chinese-language monograph.
- 周興陸 Zhōu Xīng-lù, Zhōng-zhōu jí kǎo-lùn (Shanghai, 2003) — focused book-length study.
Other points of interest
The companion Zhōngzhōu yuèfǔ 中州樂府 (1 juǎn) is the earliest and principal anthology of Jīn-dynasty cí, and the indispensable companion to the Zhōngzhōu jí poetic anthology. Together they constitute Yuán Hǎowèn’s dual literary-historical project for the Jīn dynasty. The Máo Jìn print (early Qīng) is the standard transmitter; the SKQS WYG follows this recension.