TángSòngYuán míngbiǎo 唐宋元名表
Famous Memorial-Tablets of the Táng, Sòng, and Yuán by 胡松
About the work
A 5-juǎn mid-Míng anthology of selected memorial-tablet (biǎo 表 — formal documents addressed by an official to the throne) compositions from Táng, Sòng, and Yuán, compiled by Hú Sōng (胡松, zì Màozhōng 茂中, of Chúyáng 滁陽) during his tenure as Shānxī ànchásī tíxué fùshǐ (Vice Education Commissioner of Shānxī). The compilation served as an examination-essay model (shìzǐ chéngshì) for students preparing for the second-stage Míng civil-service examinations (which required composition of biǎo in the parallel-prose / sìliù style). Hú’s own preface (Jiājìng rényín / 1542, 5th month, full moon) traces biǎo as a literary genre from HànWèiLiùcháo through SuíTáng to its flourishing in the Sòng.
The catalog meta gives Hú Sōng’s dates as 1274–1357 — these are the dates of an earlier Yuán-era Hú Sōng, not the Míng anthologist. The Míng compiler’s CBDB id is 68290 or 68288 (multiple Míng candidates); the most likely identification is Hú Sōng of Tóngchéng, Jiājìng 1521 jìnshì, CBDB id 68288 (1490–1572) — Wilkinson-style “Hu Song (1490–1572)” — based on the office held.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the TángSòngYuán míngbiǎo in 5 juǎn — the Míng Hú Sōng edited it. Sōng has the Chúzhōu zhì — already catalogued. The Míngshǐ biography of Hú Sōng records that from youth he was shìxué (eager to learn); he once compiled an Ancient Famous Ministers’ Memorials and Memos (Gǔ míngchén zhāngzòu); but that text we have not now seen. The present compilation is what Sōng made during his tenure supervising education in Shānxī — selected as a shìzǐ chéngshì (student examination-model) book. Although what is recorded is found in the various biéjí — nothing rare or unseen — the qùqǔ (selection-rejection) is exceedingly bùgǒu (uncasual).
[Cites Hú’s preface extensively, on biǎo as a genre — see below.]
[The Sìkù editors then make their own point:]
Since the Míng, the second-stage examinations have used biǎo; hence biǎo was degraded to shíwén (timely-style writing). In time, wěitǐ (false forms) emerged: sometimes using long lián (parallels) — like Wáng Shìzhēn’s compositions with one lián containing more than ten lines (akin to the èrxiǎobǐ of the Sìshū wén eight-leg essays); sometimes mixing in 5-and-7-syllable verse lines, claiming to follow Xú [Líng] 徐陵 and Yǔ [Xìn] 庾信 plus Wáng [Bó] 王勃 and Luò [Bīnwáng] 駱賓王 — not realising that Xú/Yǔ/Wáng/Luò used such forms only in fù (rhapsodies). Fù belongs to the gǔshī family, where this form was natural. To insert verse-lines into prose — does this still constitute a gé (proper form)? As for using ready-made phrases verbatim — they often become shēngyìng (raw and stiff) and chāyá (branchy); mixing in vulgar speech — bǐlǐ (rustic and easy); the guānmiǎn tánghuáng (imperial-cap, hall-grand) tones imitate the piáoxí pímáo (skin-and-fur of paraphrase); the dòudīng gēliè (jumbled-and-fragmented) phrases — small-talents make them xiānqiǎo (tender-clever) — the harm is unspeakable.
Sōng selected this compilation to draw back the falling wave and bring it back to yǎ (elegance) — he may be said to have contributed to the piántǐ (parallel form) tradition.
Reverently submitted, twelfth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. Hú Sōng’s preface is dated Jiājìng rényín (1542), 5th month. He signs himself “former Shānxī ànchásī tíxué fùshǐ Chúyáng Hú Sōng”. The compilation was completed at Shānxī before his next posting.
Significance. (1) The work is a mid-Míng examination-pedagogy anthology — its purpose is explicitly to provide models for the second-stage exam’s biǎo requirement, in the context of the late-imperial degradation of biǎo into the formulaic shíwén. (2) Hú’s preface — quoted extensively by the SKQS editors — is a substantial theoretical statement of the biǎo genre’s history: biǎo began in HànWèiLiùcháo, peaked in SuíTáng, reached its zenith in Sòng — and degenerated after. The aim of the volume is to restore the canonical TángSòngYuán standard. (3) The SKQS editors’ lengthy critique of Wáng Shìzhēn’s ten-line lián practice — and their citation of juéjué (insistent) Hán Yù opposing gǔwén/shíwén mixing — locates the volume in the mid-Qīng critique of late-Míng parallel-prose excess. (4) The work is one of the few extant Míng examination-pedagogy anthologies for biǎo specifically — most surviving exam-pedagogy texts focus on zhì (memorials), cè (policy essays), or eight-leg essays.
Translations and research
- Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, 2000) — context for examination-pedagogy texts.
- Hilde de Weerdt, Competition over Content (Cambridge MA, 2007) — Sòng exam-essay tradition.
- No substantial Western-language monograph specifically on Hú Sōng or this work located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of a small but important set of mid-Míng exam-genre-specific anthologies — paralleled by KR4h0105 Jīngyì mófàn (for jīngyì essays). These works illuminate the Míng examination’s parallel-prose dimensions — often under-studied in modern scholarship that focuses on the eight-leg essay alone. The biǎo requirement of the second-stage exam was a major continuation of pre-Sòng piánwén traditions into late-imperial civil service.
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §60.