御定全唐詩

Yùdìng Quán Táng shī 御定全唐詩

Imperially Determined Complete Poetry of the Táng by 聖祖玄燁, 彭定求

About the work

The Kāngxī-era imperial 900-juǎn compilation of the complete surviving Táng-dynasty verse corpus — the single most consulted Táng-poetry resource of the pre-modern and modern eras. Imperially commissioned by the Kāngxī emperor (聖祖玄燁) on Kāngxī 44/3/19 (April 1705); compiled at the Yángzhōu Cí Hèmò shūjú 揚州詞翰沫書局 (the imperial printing-bureau in Yángzhōu) under the management of the Liǎnghuái salt commissioner and Jiāngníng zhīzào Cáo Yín 曹寅 (1658–1712, grandfather of the Hónglóu mèng novelist Cáo Xuěqín); and edited by ten Hànlín scholars headed by Péng Dìngqiú (彭定求, the Kāngxī 9 / 1670 zhuàngyuán), Shěn Sānzēng 沈三曾, Yáng Zhōngnè 楊中訥, Pān Cónglǜ 潘從律, Wāng Shìhóng 汪士鋐, Xú Shùběn 徐樹本, Chē Dǐngjìn 車鼎晉, Wāng Yì 汪繹, Zhā Sìlì 查嗣瑮, and Yú Méi 俞梅. The work was completed Kāngxī 45 / 10th month / 1st day (Oct 1706) and submitted to the throne, with the imperial preface dated Kāngxī 46/4/16 (May 1707).

The compilation builds on two principal precedents: (1) the late-Míng Hú Zhènhēng 胡震亨 Táng yīn tǒngqiān 唐音統籤 (1003 juǎn; the most comprehensive late-Míng Táng-poetry compilation) and (2) the Quán Táng shī manuscript already in the imperial library (the early Nèifǔ 內府 compilation, basis-text). The Kāngxī project collated these two against each other, supplemented from individual biéjí and miscellaneous sources, and produced 48,900+ poems by 2,200+ poets across 900 juǎn. The Kāngxī preface explicitly rejects the old four-fold periodisation (chūTáng, shèngTáng, zhōngTáng, wǎnTáng) in favour of strict chronological ordering by date of jìnshì / first office / death (the fánlì 凡例 gives explicit rules). The format runs: emperors / consorts / princes / princesses / Buddhist monks / Daoist priests / foreign authors / famous women / immortals / ghosts → then secular authors by chronology. The compilation’s fánlì also documents the methodical scholarly cleaning: removal of pre-Táng pieces wrongly absorbed into Táng biéjí; removal of misattributed pieces; explicit policies on duplicate poems and variant readings. The result is the canonical Táng-poetry corpus that defined what “Táng poetry” means for the next 300 years.

Tiyao

[The SKQS source carries the Kāngxī imperial preface (御製全唐詩序, dated Kāngxī 46/4/16, 1707), a 16-point editorial-principles document (凡例), and Cáo Yín’s jìnshū biǎo (memorial-on-presentation). Translated and abridged here.]

Kāngxī imperial preface (dated Kāngxī 46/4/16 = May 1707). Poetry reached its completeness in the Táng — all forms were prepared, all rules were exhausted; hence whoever discusses poetry must take the Táng masters as their standard, just as archers aim at the bull’s-eye and craftsmen follow the compass-and-square. In the Táng’s founding period, sound-and-rule (shēnglǜ) was already used in the selection of officials. The talented and bright of the empire all studied the liùyì (Six Modes) of poetry as their path to office; their training was already focused and diligent. To this were added the gēnghé (exchanged singing) of court occasions, the zèngchù (gifts and receptions) of friends, and the gǎnhuái of climbing-and-feasting and the yùxìng of journey-fatigue and travel-grief — all gave issue in poetry. Although prosperity and ruin took different paths, joy and sorrow occupied different scenes — for the shūxiě xìngqíng (writing-out of inherent emotion), they all converge.

What is xìngqíng lodges in what a thousand years share (qiānzǎi tóngfú). How can there be sub-divisions by epoch? Those who discuss Táng-poetry seize on early, high, middle, late and split into strict territories, yìyáng xuānqīng zhī guòshèn — these are all arbitrary names imposed by later men, not principled commentary (hòurén qiángwéi zhī míng, fēi tōnglùn yě). Earlier the Táng-selected-by-Táng anthologies — Yīn Fán’s 殷璠 Hé yuè yīnglíng jí, Yuán Jié’s 元結 Qièzhōng jí, Lìnghú Chǔ’s 令狐楚 Yùlǎn shī, Yáo Hé’s 姚合 Jí xuánjí — were not xiángbèi (detailed-complete). In early Sòng the Wényuàn yīnghuá preserved Táng verse extensively, but its yǐ lèi cóng (by-category arrangement) leaves many tuōlòu (omissions). The whole dynasty’s corpus was never made into a single great vista.

We have now issued the complete Táng poetry in the Nèifǔ and ordered the literary officials to collate it together with the Táng yīn tǒngqiān and other compilations, cānhù jiàokān (cross-collating), sōubǔ quēyí (searching-and-supplementing). The names chūshèngzhōngwǎn are removed; the arrangement is purely by date. Where the author held office, the date is yuèrì (month-and-day) of his entering the registers; where this is not recoverable, the dating is by what the poem records or by contemporaries. 48,900-plus pieces, 2,200-plus authors, 900 juǎn. The three centuries’ Táng poets’ jīnghuá (essence) is now gathered into one book.

Fánlì (editorial principles, 16 points, including):

• “The Táng Gāozǔ’s gifted-piece to Qínwáng cited in the Cèfǔ yuánguī has ‘Wǔsù liánzhū’ — the late-Míng Hú Zhènhēng notes that no five-planet conjunction occurred in the early Táng. Suspected as a forgery. Deleted; the dynasty’s literary flourishing begins from Tàizōng.”
• “Pre-Táng pieces wrongly absorbed into the Quán Táng shī — e.g. Chén Zhāo, Lady Shěn (wife of Wèi Jìngyú), the Wúxìng Shénnǚ — to be removed.”
• “Pre-Táng pieces wrongly attributed in the original biéjí — e.g. Wú Jūn’s Qiè ān suǒ jū mistakenly entered as Cáo Yè’s; Xuē Dàohéng’s Xīxī yán mistakenly entered as Liú Chángqīng’s — to be corrected.”
• “Authors who never existed as Táng figures, the poems being actually by Six-Dynasties hands — to be deleted.”
• “The Táng yīn tǒngqiān contains 28 juǎn of Daoist incantations and Buddhist jìsòng — these are not the lineage of gēshī, all to be deleted.”

Cáo Yín’s jìnshū biǎo (memorial of presentation). On Kāngxī 44/3/19 (1705), the imperial command was issued to print the Quán Táng shī. Cáo Yín was charged with the printing-engraving; Péng Dìngqiú and the other named jiàoduì guān (collating officials) carried out the textual work. On Kāngxī 45/10/1 (1706) the book was completed and presented.

Abstract

Date. Imperial commission Kāngxī 44/3/19 (April 1705). Completion Kāngxī 45/10/1 (October 1706). Imperial preface Kāngxī 46/4/16 (May 1707). The compilation was therefore a remarkable eighteen-month project of intense Hànlín editorial work in the Yángzhōu imperial printing-bureau.

Significance. (1) The Yùdìng Quán Táng shī is the single most authoritative corpus of pre-modern Chinese poetry ever compiled — defining the corpus of Táng poetry for the world. (2) Its 48,900+ pieces, 2,200+ authors form the basis of all subsequent Táng-poetry scholarship — Chinese, Japanese, Western. (3) The Kāngxī emperor’s rejection of the four-period periodisation (chūshèngzhōngwǎn) is a major critical statement: Táng poetry should be read as one continuous corpus, with the periodisation a hòurén qiángwéi zhī míng (a name imposed later). (4) The compilation’s methodical exclusion of misattributed pieces (pre-Táng poems incorrectly entered into Táng biéjí, Six-Dynasties pieces mistaken for Táng, etc.) makes it the most textually-conservative pre-modern compilation of its scope. (5) The work was the basis for Cáo Yín’s printing operation at the Yángzhōu imperial press — establishing the Yángzhōu Cí Hèmò shūjú as the principal early-Qīng imperial publishing center, which would also issue the Pèiwén yùnfǔ 佩文韻府 (1711), the Yuānjiàn lèihán 淵鑒類函 (1710), and other major Kāngxī projects.

Editorial limitations. Modern scholarship has identified perhaps 5,000+ additional Táng pieces missing from the Quán Táng shī, recoverable from Dūnhuáng manuscripts, shíkè (stone-inscription) sources, recovered biéjí, and Japanese-preserved transmissions. Wāng Shànglíng 王重民, Sūn Wàngzé 孫望, and others have produced Bǔyí (supplements). The modern critical Quán Táng shī bǔbiān 全唐詩補編 (Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君, Zhōnghuá 1992) is the standard supplement, adding some 6,300 pieces.

Cáo Yín and the Yángzhōu press. Cáo Yín was Kāngxī’s bond-servant (包衣 bāoyī), an Imperial-Household-Department official whose Liǎnghuái salt commissionership and Jiāngníng zhīzào (Imperial Textile-Manufacturing Commissioner) posts at Yángzhōu and Jiāngníng made him the principal Kāngxī agent for cultural projects in Jiāngnán. He is the grandfather of Cáo Xuěqín 曹雪芹 (the Hónglóu mèng novelist) and a major figure of early-Qīng cultural patronage.

Translations and research

• Stephen Owen, The Poetry of the Early T’ang (Yale, 1977), The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (Yale, 1981), The Late Tang (Harvard, 2006) — comprehensive English-language treatments drawing on the Quán Táng shī.
• Chén Shàng-jūn 陳尚君 (ed.), Quán Táng shī bǔ-biān 全唐詩補編 (Zhōng-huá, 1992) — standard modern supplement.
• Charles Hartman, Han Yu and the T’ang Search for Unity (Princeton, 1986) — methodologically important on Quán Táng shī usage.
• Jonathan Spence, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (Yale, 1966) — the standard biography of Cáo Yín, including the Quán Táng shī project.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.

Other points of interest

The Yùdìng Quán Táng shī’s canonical status is so deep that it has effectively defined “Táng poetry” for the world: the term “Quán Táng shī” 全唐詩 is used as both the proper title of this compilation and as a generic noun-phrase (“complete Táng poetry”) interchangeably. Modern Chinese, Japanese, and Western Táng-poetry scholarship is almost entirely keyed to its juǎn-and-piece organisation. The work’s fánlì — particularly the principle of chronological-not-periodisation ordering — is among the most consequential editorial decisions ever made in Chinese literary history.

Links

• ctext
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.