Yuán fēngyǎ 元風雅
Wind-and-Yǎ of the Yuán by 傅習 and 孫存吾
About the work
A mid-Yuán poetry anthology in 24 juǎn (12 juǎn Qiánjí + 12 juǎn Hòují), originally titled 皇元風雅 HuángYuán fēngyǎ and retitled Yuán fēngyǎ under the Míng/Qīng. Compilation is jointly attributed: Fù Xí (傅習, zì Shuōqīng 説卿, of Qīngjiāng 清江, Jiāngxī) collected the source materials by travelling and soliciting verse from contemporary poets; Sūn Cúnwú (孫存吾, of Lúlíng 廬陵, Jiāngxī) carried out the editorial classification and final compilation. The work occupies an important position in early-to-mid-Yuán literary canon-formation: it is one of the earliest comprehensive Yuán-period dynastic poetry anthologies, complementing Sū Tiānjué’s KR4h0081 Yuán wénlèi (prose).
Tiyao
No SKQS tiyao found in the source file. The SBCK HuángYuán fēngyǎ qiánjí opens with the author-index (qúnyīng xìngshì) and the original preface by Liú Lì 劉壆 (or similar Yuán literatus), which states: “Poetry as instruction depends on inherent nature and feeling. Were one to gain nothing of this, then its way might fairly be called nearly extinct. In our August Yuán, contemporary authors have risen one upon the next, almost without disgrace to the inheritance of fēngyǎ and Sāoxuǎn. Yet imperial-court compositions are not all transmitted among the people, and the lofty manners of the mountain-forests will not stoop to common taste — those who delight in chanting have long suffered the impossibility of seeing them all. Fù Shuōqīng of Qīngjiāng travelled in all directions and amassed many poems by contemporary worthies; the volume grew vast. Sūn Cúnwú of Lúlíng systematically arranged them — several hundred pieces in all — and requested my preface.”
The anthology proper opens with Liú Yīn 劉因 (Jìngxiū xiānshēng, 靜脩劉夢吉先生), whose “lofty insight, far-reaching aspirations, transcendent personal calibre” the preface treats as fittingly placed at the head of “the literature of this dynasty”.
Abstract
Date. The preface is undated in the surviving SBCK file. The dataset of poets includes Yuán figures dying in the 1310s–1340s (Liú Yīn d. 1293; Bóyán 伯顔 丞相 d. 1340 — Bóyán the Mongolian Right Chancellor under Tuōtuō’s predecessor; Yú Jí d. 1348 (whose zì Bóshēng 伯生 appears in juǎn 1); Yáng Zài 楊載 d. 1323). The anthology cannot have been finished before c. 1330 (most recent prefaceable figures still living) and was current by c. 1350 (Sūn Cúnwú’s editorial work). The Yuánwénlèi of Sū Tiānjué (KR4h0081) shares a similar mid-to-late-Yuán horizon.
Form and significance. (1) The work is organised by author-cluster: each juǎn contains a sequence of named contemporaries (Yīn jiāozhī-王 (Annam-king), Xú cānzhèng, Liú yùshǐ, Liáng xuānwèi, Hé lǐwèn, Zhāng tiānshī, Wú zōngshī, etc.) — bózhāng the Annam king alongside Mongol princes, Confucian advisors, Daoist patriarchs, Hanlin officials — yielding an unusually broad social cross-section of the Yuán literary public. (2) The qiánjí opens with Mongol-prince Bóyán (the Right Chancellor) and jiāngbù officers, then progressively descends to Hàn literati of the southeastern circuits — a documentary witness to the Yuán’s officially mixed court culture. (3) Several poets — especially Sòng Běn 宋本, Sà Tiānxī 薩天錫, Mǎ Bóyōng 馬伯庸 — survive principally through this anthology. (4) The volume’s title (HuángYuán fēngyǎ) declares its self-positioning as Yuán’s Shījīng-style anthology: fēng (regional verse) and yǎ (court verse) classifications mapped onto the Yuán’s geographic and social divisions.
Editions. The SBCK reproduction preserves the Yuán-imprint HuángYuán fēngyǎ in 24 juǎn (前集 12 + 後集 12). The WYG SKQS edition truncates the title to Yuán fēngyǎ.
Translations and research
- 楊鎌 Yáng Lián, Yuán dài wén-xué biān-nián shǐ (Taiyuan, 2005) — places Yuán fēngyǎ in the chronology of Yuán anthology-making, alongside Yuán wén-lèi and the later KR4h0093 Yuán-yīn of Sūn Yuán-lǐ.
- 査洪德 Zhā Hóng-dé, Yuán dài wén-xué wén-xiàn xué — discussion of Yuán fēngyǎ and its sources.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The work has a complex relationship with two other Yuán-era anthologies: (1) the Yuányīn 元音 of Sūn Yuánlǐ (KR4h0093, MíngHóngwǔ — later supplanted Yuán fēngyǎ as the standard); and (2) the Yuán-period Sòng Bórén 宋伯仁 Yuán fēngyǎ of the southern Sòng/early-Yuán transition (a different work, separately catalogued). The Qīng SKQS editors deliberately retitled the present work to Yuán fēngyǎ (dropping huáng) following the convention of treating huángcháo as a non-Qīng dynastic referent.
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §31.4.