Yùdìng Quán Jīn shī zēngbǔ Zhōngzhōu jí 御訂全金詩增補中州集
Imperially Authorized Complete Jīn Poetry, Augmented Edition of the Zhōng-zhōu Anthology by 郭元釪
About the work
A 74-juǎn comprehensive corpus of poetry from the Jīn dynasty (1115–1234), built on the foundation of Yuán Hǎowèn’s (元好問, 1190–1257) Zhōngzhōu jí 中州集 but vastly expanded by Guō Yuánfǔ (郭元釪, d. 1722). Imperially commissioned, completed Kāngxī 50 (1711); the Kāngxī emperor’s imperial preface — preserved in the SKQS recension under the heading 聖祖仁皇帝御製全金詩序 — is dated Kāngxī wǔshí xīnmǎo dōngrì (winter 1711). Yuán Hǎowèn’s original Zhōngzhōu jí (compiled 1233–1257 in the wake of the Jīn collapse) preserves 240+ Jīn poets and ~1,980 poems in 11 juǎn (10 zhèngjí + 1 yuèfǔ); the Yuán historian Hǎo Jīng 郝經 stated that Yuán Hǎowèn’s original was 100 juǎn, so the surviving 10 juǎn are only a fragment of the lost original. Guō Yuánfǔ — drawing on jùnxiàn zhì (prefectural-county gazetteers), Jīn-Yuán-period epigraphic and bā sources, the Jīnshǐ 金史, Liú Qí’s 劉祁 Guīqián zhì 歸潛志, and surviving biéjí — recovered an additional 5,000+ Jīn poems by hundreds more poets. The resulting Quán Jīn shī: 74 juǎn, 6× the juǎn-count of the Zhōngzhōu jí, ~3× the poet-count, ~2× the poem-count. The work organises Jīn-period poetry by social-status / role (dìzǎo / imperial verse, gōngzú / clan members, zhūxiàng / chief councillors, zhuàngyuán / examination winners, Sòng qíjiù / Sòng-old-survivors, Dàjiā 大家 / major poets, Míngjiā 名家 / famous poets, Zhūjiā 諸家 / various poets, and finally Yuán Hǎowèn + Liú Qí). Augmentations to the Zhōngzhōu jí are marked bǔ 補; supplementary annotations from the Jīnshǐ, Guīqián zhì, and other sources are marked fù 附. The work is a major monument of Kāngxī-period imperial textual scholarship: a comprehensive corpus of a long-undervalued dynasty’s poetic legacy, recovered through patient gazetteer-and-epigraphy work.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Yùdìng Quán Jīn shī in 74 juǎn — built upon Yuán Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí and zēngbǔ (augmented). In Kāngxī 50 (1711), the draft text submitted by Guō Yuánfǔ was taken and further searched-and-collated to form the present book. Hǎowèn’s original Zhōngzhōu jí is separately catalogued. That book yǐ rén xì shī (associates poems by author), xiáng qí xínglǚ (detailing his career-record), jiān píng qí shī gé gāoxià (concurrently judging his poetic level high-or-low), and huò zhāi lùn jiājù (sometimes selecting famous lines for discussion), yòu huò fù lùn tāwén tāshì (or appending discussion of other prose and events) — dàgài yīn shī yǐ cún rén (generally using poetry to preserve persons). The yìlì tè chuàng (particular editorial method) — pō wéi lùnshī jiā tuīzhòng (much honoured by shīlùn scholars). But what was recorded was not extensive: 11 juǎn (including yuèfǔ), 240+ persons, 1,980+ poems.
This compilation, in the augmentation: 6× the juǎn-count of the original; nearly 3× the persons; 2× the poems. A whole dynasty’s compositions are now comprehensively included without remainder.
In it, events-cited and persons-discussed taken from Liú Qí’s Guīqián zhì are marked bǔ (= augmenting Yuán Hǎowèn from Liú Qí); items also drawn from the Jīnshǐ and various biéjí and bàiyě jìzǎi (anecdote-and-rural records) are marked fù (= attached supplementary notes). The compilation gathers every kind of source — xiānxī bèizǎi (every fine detail recorded) — and Guō Yuánfǔ’s own words and judgements are also kept visible. The conclusion of the work places Yuán Hǎowèn and Liú Qí as a pair, titled yíxiàn (remnant offerings).
The bùcì jǐngrán (categorisation orderly): compared to Hǎowèn’s original — the analogy is dàlù chuílún (the great carriage versus the cudgel-wheel) [i.e. immensely improved]. Respectfully reading the Sage-Ancestor Benevolent Emperor’s imperial preface, we know this work was indeed huìcuì páizé chéng shū (gathered-and-arranged into a book by imperial direction); and yet the head of the table-of-contents yóu biāo (still bears the mark) “Servant Guō Yuánfǔ bǔjí” — by which we may look up to the dàshèngrén shànyǔ tóngrén (the great sage’s goodness in sharing with others) — yī cháng bì lù (any single excellence will surely be recorded) — the shèngxīn’s grandness. Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 45 (1780). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Kāngxī imperial preface (winter 1711): The Jīn possessed the empire — wǔgōng wénzhì cànrán zhāomíng (its martial achievement and civil governance shone brilliantly). The talented multitudes gathered in the Dàdìng (1161–89) and Míngchāng (1190–96) reigns — qīnqīn hū shèng yǐ (galloping at full flourishing). But Northern Yuán [the Mongols] and Southern Sòng — across the Jīn’s whole duration — fought, sent envoys, allowed cì wú xiá rì (hardly an idle day). Its diǎnzhāng míngwù yānmò yú dāngshí ér bù chuán yú hòu zhě (institutions and named-things buried at the time, not transmitted to later) — uncounted.
Yuán Hǎowèn of Tàiyuán composed the Zhōngzhōu jí: yǐ rén shǔ shī, yǐ shì shǔ rén (poems under persons; events under persons); later ages have the name “shīshǐ” (poet-history) for it. And Liú Qí of Húnyuán likewise wrote the Guīqián zhì, which can xiāng cān hùzhèng with the Zhōngzhōu jí. The rénwén still recoverable depends on these two books surviving. We have often consulted the Jīnshǐ and seen its extensive use of Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí — we increasingly believe that “shīshǐ” is no empty term. We therefore wished to obtain the whole of Jīn poetry to supplement what the Jīnshǐ did not record — zhuōrán chéng yīdài zhī shū (to stand out as a dynasty’s book). When the Quán Jīn shī came to be submitted, we ordered it gēng jiā sōují (further searched-and-compiled). Wherever scattered fragments of Jīn-personage jí could be preserved, jiē lìng fù yǐ rù (all were ordered appended); and from the shānjīng dìzhì, the chuānzé zhī jìwén, zhuìzhí huìzòng (selecting-and-pulling, gathering together), jùxì bùyí (large and small, nothing missed). […] The Jīn’s shìdé (clan-virtue) is long, jùnxiù (talents) emerged in waves. Now reflecting on this compilation: one sees the guójiā zhī guāng (the state’s brightness) and the dǔshēng zhī fù (its fertile soil for great births). Looking back: from Jīn to now is nearly 600 years; its lǐyuè shēngmíng zài zài yìlín zhī yǒngyán — without the Zhōngzhōu and Guīqián books, how could later men have known? — kě bù yǒng qí chuán yě zāi (must we not transmit this for ever?). Kāngxī 50 xīnmǎo winter (1711).
Abstract
Date. Imperial preface Kāngxī 50/winter (1711) — the standard completion date. Guō Yuánfǔ’s preceding draft work spanned the first decade of the 18th century.
Significance. (1) The Yùdìng Quán Jīn shī is the definitive corpus of Jīn-dynasty poetry — replacing Yuán Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí (which had remained the standard reference for 450+ years) with a compilation 3× larger in poet-count and 2× larger in poem-count. (2) The work rescues Jīn poetry from comparative neglect in the standard Chinese poetic canon — the Jīn dynasty’s literary tradition had been treated as marginal between Northern Sòng and Yuán; the Quán Jīn shī establishes it as a coherent and substantial third major tradition (Northern Sòng / Jīn / Southern Sòng) of mid-imperial Chinese poetry. (3) The compilation’s organisational principle — by social-status / role, with the great Yuán Hǎowèn and Liú Qí placed at the end as yíxiàn (remnant offerings) — preserves the social-functional understanding of Jīn-period poetic activity within the imperial bureaucracy. (4) The work is one of the great products of Kāngxī-period imperial textual scholarship — the patient jùnxiànzhì / epigraphy / biéjí recovery work characteristic of the period. (5) The Kāngxī preface’s strong endorsement of the “poetry-as-history” (shīshǐ) thesis for Yuán Hǎowèn establishes Yuán as the central figure of the Jīn-poetic and Jīn-historical canon for the Qīng court.
Guō Yuánfǔ’s editorial contribution. Guō’s zòuzhé (memorial of submission), preserved in the source, gives a detailed account: a private scholar of Jiāngdū, fond of poetry from youth, read the Zhōngzhōu jí and noticed its incompleteness; cross-checked the Zhōngzhōu against Liú Qí’s Guīqián zhì and found frequent inconsistencies; suspected (based on Hǎo Jīng’s report of a 100-juǎn original) that the surviving 10 juǎn were incomplete; spent years gathering Jīn poems from gazetteers, family inscriptions, jíbá colophons, and shuōbù (anecdote-section) works; assembled the augmented compilation; submitted it for imperial review.
Translations and research
- Stephen H. West, “The Translation of Yuán Hǎo-wèn: A Critical Bibliography,” in Yüan Hao-wen Studies (1976) — foundational English-language treatment.
- Hoyt Cleveland Tillman and Stephen H. West (eds.), China Under Jurchen Rule: Essays on Chin Intellectual and Cultural History (Albany, 1995) — comprehensive English-language treatment of Jīn intellectual culture.
- Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, Genji Sanseiseki 元好問 — definitive Japanese monograph on Yuán Hǎo-wèn.
- 周惠泉 Zhōu Huì-quán, Jīn-cháo wén-xué shǐ 金朝文學史 — modern Chinese history of Jīn-dynasty literature.
Other points of interest
The Kāngxī emperor’s strong personal interest in Jīn-dynasty culture — visible in his preface here, his promotion of Zhōngzhōu jí as shīshǐ, and his Manchu-language identification with the Jurchen-Jīn imperial tradition (the Qīng’s founders consciously linked themselves to the Jīn / Jurchen ancestral state) — adds a political-genealogical dimension to the imperial sponsorship of the Quán Jīn shī: the Qīng court considered itself the successor to the Jīn, and the Quán Jīn shī serves as a kind of literary genealogy connecting the early Qīng to the Jurchen-Jīn imperial heritage.