Wǎnlíng qúnyīng jí 宛陵羣英集
Collected Worthies of Wǎnlíng by 汪澤民 and 張師愚
About the work
A 12-juǎn local poetry anthology of Xuānchéng 宣城 (ancient name Wǎnlíng 宛陵) in southern Anhuī, compiled jointly by Wāng Zémín (汪澤民, 1273–1355, zì Shūzhì 叔志, Wùyuán 婺源 man, Yányòu wùwǔ (1318) jìnshì) and Zhāng Shīyú (張師愚, zì Zhòngyú 仲愚, Níngguó 寧國 man). The work was edited and printed in the first year of the Yuán Zhìzhèng reign — 辛巳 = 1341 — at the request of the local Xuānchéng man Shī Xuán 施璇 (zì Míngshū 明叔), who paid for the woodblocks. The original twenty-eight-juǎn edition contained 1,393 poems from Sòng Tàipíng xīngguó (976–984) down to mid-Yuán, but excluded the works of the yì xìng (one-surname) star of the region, Méi Yáochén 梅堯臣 (Wǎnlíng xiānshēng, KR4d0103), whose own collection circulated separately. The SòngYuán original was lost; the Qīng SKQS editors reconstituted 746 poems by 129 authors — somewhat more than half of the original — by harvesting fragments from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn 永樂大典 entries, and reorganised them into the present 12 juǎn.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Wǎnlíng qúnyīng jí in 12 juǎn — the Yuán Wāng Zémín and Zhāng Shīyú jointly edited it.
Zémín, zì Shūzhì, Wùyuán man; in Yányòu wùwǔ (1318) jìnshì; appointed chéngshìláng, joint-administrator of Yuèzhōu Circuit and píngjiāngzhōu shì; served as tuīguān (judicial officer) of the Nánān and Xìnzhōu zǒngguǎnfǔ. On the mourning of his mother, returned home; the mourning completed, was appointed tuīguān of the Píngjiāng Circuit; reassigned to the Jǐníng Circuit, Yǎnzhōu Prefect. In Zhìzhèng 3 (1343) summoned to be guózǐ sīyè (Vice-Director of the National University) and to participate in the compilation of the Three Histories (i.e. Sòngshǐ, Liáoshǐ, Jīnshǐ). The work completed, promoted to jíxián zhíxuéshì (Hanlin-allied Academician); shortly thereafter retired with the rank of lǐbù shàngshū (Minister of Rites), residing in Xuānchéng, where he styled himself Kānlǎo zhēnyì 堪老真逸. In the fifteenth year of Zhìzhèng (1355), the Chángqiāng (Long-Spear) bandits sacked Níngguó; he was captured but refused to submit, cursing the rebels until they killed him. He was seventy. He was posthumously granted the rank zuǒchéng of the JiāngZhè Itinerant Secretariat, enfeoffed posthumously Duke of Qiáo Commandery, and given the canonization Wénjié 文節.
Shīyú, zì Zhòngyú, Níngguó man; twice recommended in the Yányòu and Tiānlì xiāngjǔ (provincial recommendations); a close friend of Zémín. The Jiāngnán tōngzhì records that he once compiled the Méi Yáochén niánpǔ; but in fact that niánpǔ is the work of his younger brother Shīcéng 師曾 and is already separately catalogued — to attribute it to Shīyú is an error.
The present compilation Zémín assembled in his late years residing in Xuānchéng, drawing on poets from early Sòng down to the Yuán — obtaining 1,393 poems, divided into ancient- and modern-style verse, organised into 28 juǎn. His fellow-villager Shī Xuán had it engraved and circulated.
Thereafter the book was long lost, no longer transmitted; consequently the bibliographic sections of the Níngguó and Xuānchéng prefectural gazetteers do not list its title. We have now collated the various rhyme-categories of the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and recovered 746 poems by 129 authors — preserving five- to six-tenths of the original. Among them are the seventy-odd poets including Wáng Guī 王珪 etc. listed in the wényuàn (literary-figures) biographies of the old Xuānchéng gazetteer — their lost works in many cases survive only through this collection. Likewise, the fragmentary lines of various authors noted in Méi Dǐngzuò’s (梅鼎祚) Wǎnyǎ 宛雅 — assumed by him to be remnants of dispersed compositions — many of their complete pieces in fact survive in the present collection. Sòng and Yuán compositions are widely scattered and lost; this anthology, although merely the verse of a single prefecture, can yet be called a documentary witness to the literary record (wénxiàn zhī zhēng).
We have respectfully gathered and collated the materials, fixing them at 12 juǎn. Where the rank, native place, and life-events of an author are recoverable, we have supplied annotation below the name; where irrecoverable, we have left it blank. Where the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn original omits the author’s name and no documentation supplies it, we have appended the piece classified at the end, pending further determination.
Reverently submitted, third month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún (紀昀), Lù Xīxióng (陸錫熊), Sūn Shìyì (孫士毅). General Collator Lù Fèichí (陸費墀).
Abstract
Compilation. The two prefaces — both dated zhèngyuè bǐngzǐ of Zhìzhèng xīnsì (1st month of 1341) — make explicit that the project was initiated by the Xuānchéng publisher Shī Xuán 施璇 and his brothers; they approached Wāng Zémín, who was retired in Xuānchéng, to compile a representative anthology of “the worthies of Wǎnlíng”. Wāng worked with his friend Zhāng Shīyú to produce twenty-eight juǎn of the most striking pieces from the Sòng Tàipíng xīngguó period (the Lǐ Shǎoqīng 李少卿 — i.e. Lǐ Tàijì 李泰吉 — and Méi Xún 梅詢 [Méi shìdú]) down to mid-Yuán.
Significance. (1) The work is a major local-poetry anthology (xiāngbāng shījí) — a sub-genre of total collection (zǒngjí) intermediate between the dynastic anthology and the single-author biéjí. The SòngYuán Xuānchéng cluster was unusually productive (Méi Yáochén’s lineage in particular, and the Méi Xún → Méi Yáochén → Méi Dǐngzuò line spans five centuries), and the Wǎnlíng qúnyīng jí preserves an unusual concentration of regional authors who otherwise survive only fragmentarily. (2) The work’s textual history is a representative case of SKQS reconstruction: the printed Yuán edition was lost early in the Míng, and the Sìkù editors produced the surviving 12-juǎn version by extracting the entries from the alphabetical (rhyme-classified) Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and reassembling them by author and form. (3) The work explicitly excludes Méi Yáochén’s poetry — his Wǎnlíng xiānshēng jí (KR4d0103) circulated separately at the local academy — establishing that Méi Yáochén was the regional canon’s central figure and that supplementary materials were the anthology’s main task.
Dating. The two prefaces fix the compilation at Zhìzhèng 1 (1341); the present recension is the Qiánlóng-46 (1781) SKQS reconstruction. For purposes of “the work itself”, 1341 is the proper terminus.
Translations and research
- 祝尚書 Zhù Shàng-shū, Sòng-rén zǒng-jí xù-lù 宋人總集敘錄 (Beijing, 2004) — handbook of Sòng poetry anthologies, with discussion of Wǎnlíng regional collections.
- 蔣寅 Jiǎng Yín, Zhōng-guó gǔ-diǎn shī-xué tōng-lùn — discussion of local-poetry anthology genres.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The work is the principal pre-modern source for Xuānchéng regional literary identity. The deliberate exclusion of Méi Yáochén — the most famous poet of the locality — clarifies the function of xiāngbāng zǒngjí: not to anthologise the regional star, but to preserve the second-tier authors who would otherwise disappear. The SKQS editors’ confirmation that Méi Dǐngzuò’s 梅鼎祚 (1549–1618) Wǎnyǎ 宛雅 — a later Xuānchéng anthology — depended on Wǎnlíng qúnyīng jí as a source establishes the lineage Wāng Zémín 1341 → Méi Dǐngzuò late Míng → SKQS 1781 of Xuānchéng xiāngjí compilation.
Links
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4 (Yuán poetry anthologies).
- ctext