Tángxián sānmèi jí 唐賢三昧集
Anthology of the Tang Worthies’ Samādhi by 王士禛
About the work
The definitive late-life poetic anthology of the great early-Qīng poet and critic Wáng Shìzhēn (王士禛, 1634–1711, the founder of the Shényùn 神韻 “Spirit-Resonance” school) — a 3-juǎn selection of High Táng (shèngTáng) poetry, embodying his mature critical position. The title sānmèi 三昧 is the Buddhist samādhi term — Wáng uses it in the meta-aesthetic sense “the inmost mastery, the self-sufficient grasp” — taken, as the Sìkù tíyào states, qǔ fójīng zìzài yì yě (from the Buddhist scriptural sense of zìzài / unimpeded autonomy). The compilation gathers pieces by High Táng poets — Wáng Wéi 王維, Mèng Hàorán 孟浩然, Wáng Chānglíng 王昌齡, Cén Shēn 岑參, and others of the same era — characterised by the Shényùn aesthetic: indirect, allusive, lyrically compressed, evocative-not-explicit. The selection deliberately excludes Lǐ Bái and Dù Fǔ, on the principle that the Shényùn ideal is better exemplified by lesser-known but more representative High Táng practitioners. The work is positioned by Wáng against two opposing late-Míng / early-Qīng poetic schools: the Tàicāng / Lìxià school (the Wénmén LǐHé lineage of Lǐ Pānlóng, Wáng Shìzhēn the Ming-period, etc.) which valued xiónghún bólì (grand-and-broad) — failing into fū (superficial); and the Gōngān / Jìnglíng schools (Yuán Hóngdào, Tán Yuánchūn, etc.) which valued qīngxīn yōumiǎo (fresh-new, dim-and-distant) — failing into guǐ (strange). The Shényùn response — zhòngshēn Yán Yǔ zhī shuō (restating Yán Yǔ’s Cānglàng shīhuà doctrine) — is to take a zhé (folding) middle path through Spirit-Resonance. The compilation provoked a sharp counter-attack from Zhào Zhíxìn 趙執信 in the Tánlóng lù 談龍錄, and Yán Ruòqú 閻若璩 noted geographical and textual errors in the compilation (a Cài Xiāng poem mistakenly entered as Zhāng Xù; Jīngshuǐ mistaken for Jīngshuǐ; Cényáng for Xúnyáng; Yùtíng for Xiètíng; Càizhōu for Càizhōu; Yúguān for Yúguān). The Sìkù editors observe that since Wáng’s selection criterion is not philological accuracy but aesthetic discrimination, these errors do not undermine the work’s principal aim.
Tiyao
Your servants respectfully submit: the Tángxián sānmèi jí in 3 juǎn — compiled by the Guócháo (Qīng-dynasty) Wáng Shìzhēn. Shìzhēn has the Gǔhuān lù — already catalogued.
Initially, Shìzhēn in youth had composed with his elder brother Wáng Shìlù 王士禄 the Shényùn jí 神韻集 (seen in the Jūyì lù) — but the book was gǎicuàn (altered) by others, no longer in its original state. So in late years he settled this present compilation. All record pieces of the shèngTáng period. Named Sānmèi — taking the Fójīng zìzài yì (the Buddhist scriptural sense of unimpeded zìzài).
Poetry: from Tàicāng (Wáng Shìzhēn the Ming-period) and Lìxià (Lǐ Pānlóng) — taking xiónghún bólì (grand-and-broad) as the zhǔ (chief value) — its defect: fū (superficial). Gōngān (Yuán Hóngdào) and Jìnglíng (Tán Yuánchūn, Zhōng Xīng) — taking qīngxīn yōumiǎo (fresh-new, dim-and-distant) as their zōng — its defect: guǐ (strange). Scholars saw both paths bìng qióng (both exhausted), bù dé bù zhé ér rù Sòng (could not help but turn-and-enter Sòng [poetic style]); its defect: zhì ér bù líng (sluggish-and-not-lithe), zhí ér hǎo jìn (direct-and-fond-of-exhausting). Discourse-records (yǔlù) and historical-judgements (shǐlùn) could all become a complete piān [— i.e. these styles had blurred into prosaic discourse].
Therefore Shìzhēn and others zhòngshēn Yán Yǔ zhī shuō (restated Yán Yǔ’s Cānglàng shīhuà doctrine) — uniquely taking Shényùn (Spirit-Resonance) — to jiǎo (correct) the deviation. This is jiùbì bǔpiān (rescuing defects, supplementing one-sidedness) — gè míng yī yì (each clarifying one truth). Subsequently, the fēngliú xiāngshàng (style mutually-esteemed) — guāngjǐng liúlián (light-and-shadow lingered).
Zhào Zhíxìn and others suì fù cāo Èrféng jiùfǎ (then again took up the Two Fèng’s old method [the Fèng Bān, Fèng Shū of Chángshú]) and arose to contend. His Tánlóng lù 談龍錄 páidǐ (attacks) this book — bùyíyúlì (sparing no strength). His lùn (criticism) is not without insight — but the two theories complement each other; only together is the lǐ (principle) whole. Shūtú tóngguī, wèiróng piānfèi (different paths returning to the same place — neither can be excluded). We have therefore preserved both.
Also: Yán Ruòqú’s Qiánqiū zhājì has a letter to Zhào Zhíxìn dǐ (attacking) this compilation: e.g. Zhāng Xù’s Sì juéjù is actually a piece by Sòng Cài Xiāng wrongly absorbed; Zǔ Yǒng’s poem has Jīngshuǐ mistakenly for Jīngshuǐ; Mèng Hàorán’s has Cényáng for Xúnyáng; Wáng Wéi’s has Yùtíng for Xiètíng, Càizhōu for Càizhōu; Gāo Shì’s Yān gē xíng has Yúguān for Yúguān — quán bù jiǎng yú dìlǐ zhī xué (entirely failing to consult geographical scholarship). The citations are jīngxiáng (precise-and-detailed), jiē qiè zhòng qí bìng (all hitting the precise faults).
However, Shìzhēn’s zìpǐn shīgé (self-presented poetic grading) was originally not concerned with kǎozhèng (textual evidence). What Yán Ruòqú says need not be huì (concealed) for this compilation, nor need it be considered the compilation’s bìng (defect). Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Date. Wáng Shìzhēn’s Shényùn jí youth compilation was from the 1660s. The mature Tángxián sānmèi jí was completed in his later career — the standard dating is c. 1688 (the work’s first printing-date in some sources; the work was assembled over the 1680s after Wáng had settled his mature critical position). The terminus is Wáng’s death in 1711.
Significance. (1) The Tángxián sānmèi jí is the canonical poetic anthology of the Shényùn (Spirit-Resonance) school — the dominant early-Qīng poetic school founded by Wáng Shìzhēn, drawing on Yán Yǔ’s Southern-Sòng Cānglàng shīhuà. The work’s selection-principle — High Táng poets favouring Shényùn qualities (allusive compression, evocative absence, lyrical reserve) — defined the mature Shényùn aesthetic for the 18th century. (2) The deliberate exclusion of Lǐ Bái and Dù Fǔ is a major critical statement: the dominant figures of Táng poetry are too dominant — too over-determined by prior reading — to exemplify the more subtle quality the Shényùn school seeks. (3) The work generated the most consequential early-Qīng poetics-debate: Zhào Zhíxìn’s Tánlóng lù attacked Wáng for over-narrow selectivity; Yán Ruòqú attacked Wáng for textual-philological carelessness. The Sìkù tíyào’s balanced response — both critiques have merit; the work’s value is intact — represents the late-18th-century critical synthesis. (4) The work’s notion of poetic sānmèi (samādhi) — Buddhist zìzài (unimpeded autonomy) — applied to poetry-reading, extends the Cānglàng metaphor (shī yǒu shényùn / shī rú chán) into the High Qīng critical vocabulary.
The Shényùn polemic. The debate over the Sānmèi jí — Wáng Shìzhēn vs. Zhào Zhíxìn / Yán Ruòqú — is the major poetics-controversy of the early Qīng, ending in the early-18th-century synthesis: the Shényùn position retains its dominance among elite poets, but is supplemented by the kǎozhèng insistence on philological-textual accuracy that the Sìkù and Qiánlóng-court editors institutionalised.
Translations and research
- James J. Y. Liu, Chinese Theories of Literature (Chicago, 1975) — for Shén-yùn theory.
- Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge MA, 1992) — substantial section on Wáng Shì-zhēn.
- Richard John Lynn, “The Talent-Learning Polarity in Chinese Poetics: Yan Yu and the Later Tradition,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 5 (1983), 157–84 — on the Cāng-làng / Shén-yùn lineage.
- 蔣寅 Jiǎng Yín, Wáng Shì-zhēn shī-xué yán-jiū 王士禎詩學研究 — major modern Chinese monograph.
Other points of interest
The Tángxián sānmèi jí — and Wáng Shìzhēn’s broader Shényùn school — formed the principal foil for the Yuán Méi 袁枚 xìnglíng school of the mid-Qīng: Yuán Méi positioned his looser, more personal-expressive aesthetic precisely against the Shényùn austerity. Through this opposition the Shényùn / Xìnglíng division shaped 18th- and 19th-century Qīng poetic discourse.