Míng wénhéng 明文衡
Beam-balance of Míng Prose by 程敏政
About the work
A 100-juǎn dynastic prose anthology of the Míng down to the late Chénghuà / early Hóngzhì period, compiled by Chéng Mǐnzhèng (程敏政, 1445–1499, zì Kèqín 克勤, of Xiūníng 休寧/Huīzhōu). The work originally bore the title 皇明文衡 HuángMíng wénhéng (preserved in the SBCK; truncated to Míng wénhéng in the SKQS, following the SKQS convention of removing huáng dynastic prefixes). The work is the canonical Míng counterpart to Sū Tiānjué’s KR4h0081 Yuán wénlèi — both organised by literary form (lèi) with progressive sub-categorisation across roughly two hundred authors. The 100-juǎn scope makes it considerably larger than the Yuán precedent.
Tiyao
No SKQS tiyao found in source file. The source preserves only the SBCK reproduction of Chéng’s original preface (signed: “Promoted jìnshì jídì, Jiāyì dàfū, Tàichángsì qīng, Hanlin Reader-Tutor and Recorder, Yùdié officer, Jīngyán official, Xīnān Chéng Mǐnzhèng preface”) — and the table of contents.
The preface itself makes the work’s program explicit:
“Prose has come down to us from antiquity, but the corrupting habit of later-age word-flowery practice has been its bane. Therefore those who recently speak of Dàoxué (Neo-Confucian learning) say: ‘You must put aside literature, only then can you enter the Way.’ But prose is the vessel that carries the Way. Only the writer has jīngcū (fineness or coarseness), so the discussions of dào have chúnbó (purity or impurity). Selecting what is jīngchún (fine and pure) and rejecting what is cūbó (coarse and impure) — then prose is not at all harmful to the Way. But to demand the burning of paper and breaking of brushes to enter the Way — is this not like hating tares and uprooting the wheat too, hating thistles and pulling up the seedlings as well? The prose of Hàn, Táng, Sòng has all been collected and edited, jīngcū mixed together. Our dynasty has swept away the accumulated evils; the literary track is dàtóng (broadly unified); writers have followed one another. But scattered, unrecorded — there has been no means to constitute one dynasty’s yán (voice). I have therefore taken what is engraved-and-circulated of the great houses, with additional broad gathering, and obtained several juǎn. Among these, I have made my own selections, all following the previous discussion as standard, sorting by category.”
Chéng goes on to anticipate the Zhū-Xī-style critique that “literature is literature, the Way is the Way” — and answers: Zhū Xī’s critique was directed at Sū’s prose (Sū Shì) specifically, not at literature as such; Zhū annotated the Chǔcí and Hán Yù’s prose extensively, so cannot be said to have abandoned literature.
Abstract
Date. Chéng Mǐnzhèng died in Hóngzhì 12 (1499). The compilation must have been completed in the early 1490s; first printed shortly thereafter. notBefore: 1490, notAfter: 1499.
The compiler. 程敏政 was a major mid-Míng Hanlin-figure: child-prodigy summoned at age 10 to study in the Hanlin Academy; jìnshì of Chénghuà bǐngxū (1466); rose through Hanlin offices to Lǐbù yòu shìláng; posthumously Lǐbù shàngshū (Minister of Rites). The Míngshǐ places him in the Rúlín zhuàn (Confucian Forest biographies). He is famous as a leading figure of the Huīzhōu (Xīnān) regional literary tradition — author of the local-history KR4h0103 Xīnān wénxiàn zhì 新安文獻志 (the present work’s companion).
Significance. (1) The work is the canonical Míng dynastic prose anthology, paralleling Sū Tiānjué’s KR4h0081 Yuán wénlèi (which Chéng explicitly takes as model). The two works occupy structurally parallel positions in the dynastic anthological tradition. (2) The categorical organisation by literary form — running across some 200 authors — establishes the canonical Míng prose categories that subsequent compilers would inherit. (3) The work’s program — preserving fùbǐxìng literature against Dàoxué anti-literary purism — articulates the mid-Míng Hanlin literary establishment’s defence of literature as a vehicle of moral instruction, against Lǐxué hardliners. (4) Major authors anthologised include: Sòng Lián 宋濂 (the dean of early-Míng prose; opens the volume with his yùZhōngyuán xí 諭中原檄), Wáng Wěi 王禕, Sū Bóhéng 蘇伯衡, Liú Jī 劉基, etc. — the founding generation of Míng prose. (5) The volume’s preface is itself a canonical statement of mid-Míng literary theory, balancing the Dàoxué and wénxué claims.
Translations and research
- John Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy (Princeton, 1983) — discusses Chéng Mǐn-zhèng and his role in mid-Míng Hanlin politics.
- Hok-lam Chan, Control of Publishing in China, Past and Present — discusses Míng wén-héng in the context of dynastic-anthology editing.
- 朱鴻林 Zhū Hóng-lín, Zhū Yuán-zhāng zhì-guó-lǐ-zhèng — relevant for early-Míng prose tradition that Chéng documents.
Other points of interest
The work and Chéng’s KR4h0103 Xīnān wénxiàn zhì are complementary: the dynastic-anthology Wénhéng organises by literary form across all the Míng; the regional anthology Xīnān wénxiàn zhì organises by author and region across Xīnān (Huīzhōu). The two together represent Chéng’s distinctive double scheme — dynastic and regional anthological work as a single curatorial project. The fate of his career was deeply bound up with the politics of the ChéngLiú scandal (the 1499 examination-cheating affair, in which Chéng’s son and Liú Jǐn 劉瑾’s faction were implicated; Chéng died shortly after).
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §32.