Yùxuǎn Táng Sòng wén chún 御選唐宋文醇
Imperially Selected Distilled Táng-Sòng Prose by 高宗弘曆
About the work
The young Qiánlóng emperor’s 58-juǎn imperial anthology of TángSòng gǔwén prose, completed and printed in Qiánlóng 3 (1738) — the emperor’s first major literary project, undertaken three years into his reign at age 27. The work distills the gǔwén tradition through the lens of the TángSòng Ten Masters (shí dàjiā) — Hán Yù 韓愈, Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元, Ōuyáng Xiū 歐陽修, Sū Xún 蘇洵, Sū Shì 蘇軾, Sū Zhé 蘇轍, Zēng Gǒng 曾鞏, Wáng Ānshí 王安石 (the standard Bā dàjiā), plus Lǐ Xízhī 李習之 (李翺, Lǐ Áo, a HánYù disciple) and Sūn Kězhī 孫可之 (孫樵, a major late-Táng prose-stylist) — making Ten Masters instead of Eight. The selection-base is the early-Qīng scholar Chǔ Xīn’s 儲欣 TángSòng shí dàjiā quánjí lù 唐宋十大家全集錄 (which itself had supplemented Máo Kūn’s 茅坤 standard Míng Bā dàjiā compilation with the two additional authors). The Qiánlóng compilation selects from Chǔ Xīn — adding what Chǔ omitted (additional 20%), removing what Qiánlóng judged inadequate. Each selected piece is accompanied by multi-source commentary — gathering critical remarks by Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and early-Qīng scholars (the fánlì names dozens of cited commentators including Liǔ Zōngyuán, Lǐ Shāngyǐn, Mù Xiū, Sīmǎ Guāng, Sū Shì, Lǚ Zǔqiān, Zhēn Déxiù, Hóng Mài, Wáng Yīnglín, Liú Kèzhuāng, Xiè Fángdé, Qiū Jùn, Hú Jūrén, Yáng Shèn, Táng Shùnzhī, Lín Xīyuán, Máo Kūn, Wáng Shènzhōng, Wáng Shìzhēn, Lǐ Tíngjī, Wáng Zhìjiān, Huáng Dàozhōu, Chén Zǐlóng, Zhāng Yīng, Lǐ Guāngdì, Chǔ Xīn, Cài Shìyuǎn …). Items previously yùpíng (imperially-commented) by the Kāngxī emperor appear with the imperial comment in yellow text at the head of the piece, marked as the supreme honour. The Qiánlóng imperial preface delivers a substantial critical statement: that wén must have xù (sequence), dá (conveyance), and wù (substance) — the Sāndá model attributed to Zhōugōng and Kǒngzǐ.
Tiyao
[The SKQS source carries the Qiánlóng imperial preface (御選唐宋文醇序, dated Qiánlóng wùwǔ qiū 9-yuè = autumn 1738), a 6-point fánlì, and the editorial zhímíng — no separate Sìkù 提要. Translated and abridged here.]
Qiánlóng imperial preface. Of the three immortalities (sān bùxiǔ: virtue, achievement, words), lìyán (establishing words) is one. The saying “yán zhī wú wén, xíng ér bù yuǎn” — “words without pattern do not travel far” — points to: yán zhī yǒu wén zhě nǎi néng lì yú hòushì (words with pattern can be established for later ages). The tǐ (forms) of wén are not unitary; theories of wén are many. Where the qúnyán (many words) jumble, judging them must take the zhōng in the Shèng (sages) — and must take the words of Zhōugōng and Kǒngzǐ as the standard.
Zhōugōng said: yán yǒu xù (“speech has sequence”). Kǒngzǐ said: cí dá ér yǐ yǐ (“phrasing-conveying is enough”). Without xù (sequence), one certainly cannot dá (convey). If one wishes to dá but loses xù, his words can never yúnlín bōzhé (rise wave-by-wave) and resemble tiāndì zhī wén (heaven-and-earth’s pattern). But if the yì (meaning) is jiānjiān (thin) and the words have zhīyè (branch-and-leaf), fēiqīng píbái (matching green and complementing white), diāozhuó màncí (carving-and-polishing long phrases) — this is the so-called decadence of the eight dynasties (bādài zhī shuāi). Their fault returns the same: wú xù ér bù dá.
There is another step: wén suǒyǐ zú yán, yán gù yǐ zú zhì (writing exists to fulfill speech, speech exists to fulfill intent). If the zhì (intent) is yǐ huāng (already weed-ridden), what will wén attach to? Therefore Kǒngzǐ further said: yán yǒu wù (“speech has substance”). Xù ér dá, dá ér yǒu wù — this is truly the highest wén in the world.
Chānglí Hán Yù [Hán Yù 韓愈] was born almost 500 years after ZhōuHàn, and reached far back to the gǔrén lìyán zhī guǐzé (the ancients’ tracks for establishing words). His prose can be called yǒu xù ér néng dá. Yet if it must further be yán yòu néng yǒu wù (speech also having substance) — like cloth-and-silk warming people, beans-and-grain feeding people — then in Lǐ Hàn’s 700-piece compilation of Hán Yù’s writings, fewer than 30–40% reach this standard — let alone what comes after Hán Yù! How rare the highest wén!
The Míng Máo Kūn lifted out the Eight Great Masters of TángSòng — Hán Yù, Liǔ Zōngyuán [Liǔzhōu], Ōuyáng Xiū [Lúlíng], Sān Sū (Sū Xún, Sū Shì, Sū Zhé), Zēng Gǒng, Wáng Ānshí — collecting various pieces, circulating to the present age. Those who hold the brush celebrate them.
Our dynasty’s Chǔ Xīn said: Máo Kūn’s selection was made for examinations and the defect lies precisely in that. He further zēngsǔn (added-and-deleted), fù yǐ Lǐ Xízhī, Sūn Kězhī (appended Lǐ Áo and Sūn Qiáo) to make Ten Great Masters — to make readers be xìngqǐ yú gǔ (roused-to-rise toward antiquity) rather than only fācè juékē (for examination questions and degree). The intent is fine. Yet his judgment is not entirely zhōng (correctly-centred) and his vision not entirely dāng (appropriate). His qùqǔ (take-and-leave) does not greatly differ from Máo Kūn.
We have read the book and commended his intent, but have also corrected his faults. The Ten-Masters concept — they are called such because they are not Eight-Dynasties parallel-style writers. Parallel sentences are indeed a wéntǐ zhī bìng (defect of the prose form), but if as in Táng’s Wèi Zhènggōng [Wèi Zhēng] and Lù Xuāngōng [Lù Zhì], their prose is mostly parallel but cí dá lǐ yì zú wéi shì yòng (the wording conveys, the principle reaches, it suffices for the world’s use) — then what defect is parallel-style? Rìyuè lì hū tiān, tiān zhī wén yě (sun-and-moon hang on heaven — that is heaven’s pattern); bǎigǔ cǎomù lì hū tǔ, dì zhī wén yě (hundred grains and plants hang on earth — that is earth’s pattern). Does the huàgōng (creator-craftsman) have a fixed form? The creator-craftsman shapes forms and is not fixed in any form. Can it be said that wén must have a fixed form? It depends on what its words establish.
In the leisure of imperial business, We have taken Chǔ Xīn’s selection of the Ten Masters’ prose and recorded the yán zhī yóu yǎ zhě ruògān shǒu (most refined words among them) — combining-and-editing for ease of reading. From TángSòng onwards, the famous Confucians and great scholars who composed yǒu xù yǒu wù (sequenced-and-substantial) words — there are not just ten. Yet — cháng dǐng yī luán, yì zú yǐ zhī dào yú zhī kě wèi (tasting one slice of meat from the dǐng, one knows the flavour of the dào’s rich content can be tasted) — how much more when the zhìgāo (fattest, choicest) has been zhēn (drawn-from)! Qiánlóng wùwǔ (3rd year, 1738), autumn, 9th month.
Abstract
Date. Imperial preface Qiánlóng 3, 9th month (autumn 1738). Editorial-staff appointment Qiánlóng 3, 9th month, 9th day. The compilation belongs to the very first phase of Qiánlóng’s literary projects: 1737–1738, when the new emperor (succeeded Yōngzhèng in Yōngzhèng 13/8 = Sep 1735) was establishing his literary credentials. He was 27 years old at the time.
Significance. (1) The Yùxuǎn Táng Sòng wén chún is the young Qiánlóng’s first major literary statement — establishing his canon of gǔwén through selection from Chǔ Xīn’s Shí dàjiā compilation and pointing forward to the comprehensive Sìkù quánshū project of three decades later. (2) The Qiánlóng preface’s Sāndá theory of prose (sequence-conveying-substance, xùdáwù) is a substantive critical contribution, drawing on Zhōugōng’s “yán yǒu xù” and Kǒngzǐ’s “cí dá ér yǐ” and “yán yǒu wù” to construct a unified prose-aesthetic that opposes the late-Míng bādài shuāi (decadent eight-dynasties parallel-style) school but does not entirely reject parallel composition (Wèi Zhēng and Lù Zhì retain authority). (3) The work is the first volume of the Qiánlóng Yùxuǎn wénchún / shīchún pair — the prose volume here, the poetry volume Yùxuǎn TángSòng shīchún KR4h0148 following in Qiánlóng 15 (1750). Together they form Qiánlóng’s selective canon of TángSòng gǔwén and shī. (4) The compilation supersedes Máo Kūn’s Bā dàjiā (the Míng-period standard) and Chǔ Xīn’s Shí dàjiā (the early-Qīng improvement) — establishing the canonical late-imperial TángSòng prose anthology for examination preparation and elite reading. (5) The annotation format — zhūjiā (multi-source) critical commentary plus yùpíng (imperial comment in yellow) — establishes the Qiánlóng imperial-anthology critical method that would be developed further in the Sìkù tíyào.
Editorial team. The supervising “jiānzào” (monitoring construction) was Yǔnlù (允祿 — the Kāngxī emperor’s 16th son, Zhuāng qīnwáng, by this point chief Manchu prince at court). Jiàoduì (proofing): Zhāng Zhào 張照 (1691–1745, calligrapher and senior Hànlín scholar). Jiàokān (printing): Hànlín scholars Zhū Liángqiú 朱良裘, Dǒng Bāngdá 董邦達, Wú Tài 吳泰, Táng Jìnxián 唐進賢, Wàn Sōnglíng 萬松齡, and others.
Translations and research
- 龔鵬程 Gōng Péng-chéng, Wén-shǐ tōng-yì 文史通義 — on the gǔ-wén tradition’s late-imperial canonization.
- 陳平原 Chén Píng-yuán, Cóng wén-rén zhī wén dào xué-zhě zhī wén 從文人之文到學者之文 — modern Chinese study of Qīng prose criticism.
- Anthony C. Yu, “Tang-Song Guwen Anthologies in the Qing,” in Journal of Asian Studies — modern study of the Yù-xuǎn Táng-Sòng wén-chún lineage.
Other points of interest
The Qiánlóng emperor’s choice — at age 27, three years into his reign — to begin his literary publishing-program with a Confucian-orthodox gǔwén anthology under the xùdáwù model rather than with the imaginatively-aestheticist yǒngwù or cí genres is a deliberate political-cultural signal: the new emperor positions himself as a serious classical-prose scholar within the HánYù tradition. The contrast with his father Yōngzhèng’s literary inclinations (Buddhist yǔlù selection, Yùxuǎn yǔlù etc.) and with his grandfather Kāngxī’s expansive ecumenism (the Quán Táng shī, Pèiwénzhāi yǒngwù) is striking — each emperor’s literary projects construct a distinct imperial cultural identity.