南齊文紀

NánQí wénjì 南齊文紀

Records of Southern-Qí Prose by 梅鼎祚

About the work

A 10-juǎn late-Míng anthology of Southern-Qí prose by Méi Dǐngzuò (梅鼎祚) — covering the Southern Qí dynasty (479–502), one of the Southern Dynasties (南朝). The Southern Qí was brief (23 years) and produced few prose-masters of stature comparable to its predecessors and successors; the volume is correspondingly thin. The SKQS editors note multiple editorial defects more openly than in other volumes: confusion of dynasties (cross-bordering Sòng pieces, Liáng pieces); duplicate entries; mis-attributions; and palace-edict fragments that should never have been treated as literary prose.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the NánQí wénjì in 10 juǎn — the Míng Méi Dǐngzuò edited it.

This collection — its chóudá (response-and-reply) compositions intermix fùlù (appendices), and errors include the misplacement of earlier-dynasty cègào (investiture documents) and the like — yǔ zhū jí lüètóng (roughly the same as with the other collections) — but the tǐlì (editorial form) is especially cóngcuò (jumbled):

• The Yǒngmíng 5 (487), 9th month decree — is actually a Qíshū (Book of Southern Qí) summary-paraphrase of an event, presented as a zhào (decree).
• Gāozǔ yǔ Zhōu Pánlóng dìèr chì and Míngdì shǒuzhào Wáng Sīyuǎn are both routine palace speech of only 5 characters — these can be preserved as gùshí (historical fact) but not classed as wénzhāng (literary prose).
• Anonymous prose is by example appended at the end; but Yúfùhóu Zǐxiǎng’s huánběn memorial is uniquely placed at the front — like earlier-dynasty imitations归属 (categorised) by the writer.
• Chǔ Yuān’s chánQí zhào (Chǔ Yuān’s edict transferring power to Qí), Jiāng Yān’s zhúlěi jiào (Jiāng Yān’s training-the-troops instructions) — uniquely not standardised.
• Cáo Jǐngzōng with younger brother Yìzōng’s letter, Shěn Yuē answering Lù Jué’s Yuèǎi shū — even though the persons later entered Liáng, the matter belongs to Qí — yet why placed here when other Liáng-period works are in Liáng?
• Sòng Shùndì answering executing Huánghuí’s edict — but Sòng wénjì is itself a separate compilation — why across-dynasty insertion?
• Liú Qiú answering Xiāo Zǐliáng’s letter — already in juǎn 2 — yet also appears in juǎn 6 — shī jiǎn yì shèn yǐ (failure-of-collation is also extreme).

Among the corrections he did make: Gāozǔ to Wáng Yánzhī letter — Chǐdú (reaching with brush) — corrected from Shìzǔ to the right place. Cuī Jué with younger sister’s letter — Chǐdú — corrected from “Cuī Gōngzǔ” to right. Such small corrections are present.

But: Huánghuí, a single person, noted at two separated places; Cáo Hǔ, a single person, earlier annotation at BěiWèi, but a 7-juǎn lá later separately listing Cáo Hǔ with detailed juélǐ (rank-and-native-place) — máodùn (contradictions) are quite plentiful. Tú yǐ yī dài zhī wén jiānshōu quánbèi ér cún zhī ěr (Merely because one dynasty’s prose is complete-collected — we preserve it, that is all).

Reverently submitted, fifth month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Date. c. 1615–1618 compilation; posthumous publication 1620s–1638.

Significance. (1) The volume is the canonical Míng anthology of Southern-Qí prose — covering a brief but historically pivotal southern dynasty. (2) Major figures anthologised: Jiāng Yān 江淹 (with the Biéfù and Hènfù author working in Qí before transferring to Liáng), Shěn Yuē (similar career), Wáng Róng 王融, Xiāo Zǐliáng 蕭子良 (the jìnglíng wáng), Chǔ Yuān 褚淵 (the senior minister who facilitated the SòngQí transition), Liú Qiú 劉虬, etc. (3) The SKQS editors’ detailed enumeration of the NánQí wénjì’s defects — duplicate entries, mis-attributions, cross-dynastic insertions — is itself an exemplary mid-Qīng jiàokān (collation-correction) of a Wàn-lì-era anthology. (4) Méi’s preservation of routine 5-character palace edicts as “literary prose” — criticised by the Sìkù editors — is documentary evidence of the late-Míng tendency to expand the literary canon to include all surviving documents, even when their wénxué (literary) value is doubtful.

Translations and research

• Tian Xiaofei, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (Cambridge MA, 2007) — Liáng-era literature with Qí-Liáng transition context.
• David R. Knechtges (ed.), Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide — comprehensive reference.
• Cynthia L. Chennault, “Lofty Gates or Solitary Impoverishment? Tetrasyllabic Verse-Style in the Southern Qi” — focused study.

Other points of interest

The volume documents the Yǒngmíng style (Yǒngmíng tǐ 永明體) literary moment of late-5th-century Jiànkāng — the prosodic-tonal-experimentation that would feed into the QíLiáng Gōngtǐ shī (palace-style verse) and ultimately the Táng lǜshī (regulated verse). Méi’s prose anthology cannot directly document the Yǒngmíng verse experiments (those are in his KR4h0119 Gǔ yuèyuàn and Féng Wéinè’s KR4h0107 Gǔshī jì); but the prose volume preserves the contextual discussions of prosody and the memorials and letters of the Yǒngmíng masters.

Links

• ctext
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §32, §38.