Chén wénjì 陳文紀
Records of Chén Prose by 梅鼎祚
About the work
An 8-juǎn late-Míng anthology of Chén dynasty prose by Méi Dǐngzuò (梅鼎祚) — covering the Chén dynasty (557–589), the last and shortest of the Southern Dynasties. As the SKQS editors note, “the Six Dynasties’ Southern lineage reaches Chén and ends; the literary art also reaches Chén and reaches its extreme decline”. Only two poets — Yīn Kēng 陰鏗 and Zhāng Zhèngjiàn 張正見 — count as masters of the era; in prose, only Xú Líng 徐陵 and Shěn Jiǒng 沈炯 stand out; Jiāng Zǒng 江總 also has substantial transmitted material, though much of his career straddled Liáng above and Suí below.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Chén wénjì in 8 juǎn — the Míng Méi Dǐngzuò edited it.
The Southern Dynasties’ 6 generations — reach Chén and end; literary writing — reach Chén and become utterly decayed (jí bì). Of the era’s néng zìchéngjiā (those who could form their own school): in verse — only Yīn Kēng and Zhāng Zhèngjiàn; in prose — only Xú Líng and Shěn Jiǒng; beyond — Jiāng Zǒng’s surviving works are slightly more abundant — but his career was earlier serving Liáng (shàngchéng yìdài) and later turning to Suí, still signing his old title (yǐ shǔ qiánxián).
Dǐngzuò gathered his earlier-and-later compositions, splitting and including in Chén to fill the juǎnzhì (fascicle-volumes); by his other-collections’ standard — bùmiǎn zìluàn qílì (unavoidable self-disorder of his own rules).
However, Dǐngzuò having already taken 南北朝 prose to make a comprehensive editing — if he had omitted one dynasty, the yuánliú shǐmò (source-flow beginning-and-end) would have suǒ wèixiáng (incomplete details). One cannot reprove him as fànlàn (broad-overflow).
Moreover: from Yǒngmíng to Tiānjiān (i.e. Liáng’s first reign) — distance is not far; Jiāngzuǒ yúfēng (the surviving wind of Jiāngzuǒ — the Jiang-southern atmosphere) — wǎngwǎng ér zài (here-and-there still present).
Before Hán Yù and Liǔ Zōngyuán appeared — Wáng Bó and Yáng Jiǒng’s lìzhì (beautiful compositions), Yān Xǔ 燕許’s hóngpiān (grand pieces) — many were drawn from these. Cannot be dismissed as “few” and discarded.
Reverently submitted, seventh 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 work is the canonical Míng anthology of Chén-dynasty prose. (2) Despite the small total (8 juǎn), the work preserves Xú Líng’s continuing late-career prose (after the Yùtái xīnyǒng compilation) and Jiāng Zǒng’s post-Liáng work — important contextual material for the Yùtái xīnyǒng transmission and the late-stage of gōngtǐ style. (3) The SKQS editors’ formula — Six Dynasties reach Chén and end; literary writing reaches Chén and extreme decay — is a canonical late-imperial assessment that influenced subsequent Chinese literary historiography. (4) Yet the editors immediately qualify: the “extreme decay” still produced the stylistic resources that Wáng Bó 王勃, Yáng Jiǒng 楊炯, Zhāng Yuè 張說 (the Yān prince), Sū Tǐng 蘇頲 (the Xǔ prince) — i.e. the early-Táng YánXǔ literary set — would draw from. Chén prose is therefore not really decayed but transformative: the bridge from Southern-Dynasties decoration to Táng restoration. (5) Méi Dǐngzuò’s gathering of Jiāng Zǒng’s pre-Chén and post-Chén works — though criticised as self-inconsistent — is a documentary necessity given Jiāng’s career-straddle.
Translations and research
- Tian Xiaofei (ed.), Reading Wang Wei — relevant for early-Táng inheritance from Six Dynasties.
- David R. Knechtges (ed.), Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide — comprehensive reference.
- Cynthia L. Chennault et al. (eds.), Early Medieval Chinese Texts — bibliographical guide.
Other points of interest
The work documents the last gasp of Southern-Dynasties literary culture before the Suí unification (589). The Chen-Sui transition was politically sharp but literarily continuous: many Chen literati served the Suí, then the Táng; their stylistic resources were inherited rather than discarded. The Qīng critical formula — Six Dynasties reach Chén and end — refers to dynastic boundaries, not to literary lineage; the latter ran continuously through and across.
Links
- ctext
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §32, §38.