宋詩鈔

Sòng shī chāo 宋詩鈔

Selected Transcripts of Sòng Poetry by 吳之振

About the work

The canonical pre-modern Sòng-poetry anthology, in 106 juǎn, compiled by Wú Zhīzhèn (吳之振, 1640–1717, with collaboration from Lǚ Liúliáng 呂留良 and Wú Zìmù 吳自牧 in the early phases) — printed by Wú at his own Huángyècūnzhuāng press in Kāngxī 11 (1672). The work selects from 100 Sòng poets their representative pieces, with brief biographical xiǎozhuàn prefixing each poet’s section — on the model of Yuán Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí 中州集 — and with critical-textual commentary more extensive than Yuán Hǎowèn’s. The Sìkù tíyào situates the compilation in the early-Qīng poetic-school rebellion against late-Míng imitation: the Wànlì Gōngān and Jìnglíng schools’ tiāoqiǎo (light-clever) excesses had triggered an early-Qīng counter-movement toward zhēnpǔ (true-and-natural) writing, and the recovery of Sòng poetry (long disparaged by Míng Qián qīzǐ dogma) was a principal early-Qīng strategy. Wú’s compilation crystallises this position: it presents Sòng poetry as a viable alternative tradition, organised by author with full biographical context.

The 1672 printing was, however, incomplete: 16 of the 100 biéjí (poet-sections) had table-of-contents listings but no surviving text — the engraving simply not completed (jījué wèijùn “the woodblock-cutting never finished”). The missing poets per the Sìkù tíyào are: Liú Yǎn 劉弇, Dèng Sù 鄧肅, Huáng Xuān 黃軒, Wèi Liǎowēng 魏了翁, Fāng Féngchén 方逢辰, Sòng Bórén 宋伯仁, Féng Shíxíng 馮時行, Yuè Kē 岳珂, Yán Yǔ 嚴羽 (the Cānglàng shīhuà author), Qiú Wànqǐng 裘萬頃, Xiè Fángdé 謝枋得, Lǚ Dìng 呂定, Zhèng Sīxiāo 鄭思肖, Wáng Bǎi 王柏, Gě Chánggēng 葛長庚 (Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾, the Daoist immortal), and Zhū Shūzhēn 朱淑真 (the famous Sòng-period woman poet). This gap was supplemented in the early 18th century by Cáo Tíngdòng’s 曹庭棟 Sòng bǎijiā shī cún 宋百家詩存 KR4h0167, which collects exactly the poets Wú had omitted. The two compilations are explicitly identified by the Sìkù tíyào as mutually complementary.

Tiyao

Your servants respectfully submit: the Sòng shī chāo in 106 juǎn — compiled by the Guócháo (Qīng-dynasty) Wú Zhīzhèn. Zhīzhèn has the Huángyècūnzhuāng shī jí — already catalogued.

This compilation, because the Sòng-poetry selections [of earlier anthologists] are cóngzá (mixed-and-confused), so [Wú] sōuluó yíjí (searched-out remnant collections), in all obtaining 100 families [individual poet-collections]. Those who had no zhuānjí (individual collection), or had one but with fewer than 5 shǒu (pieces) selected from it, are not recorded. Each collection is prefaced with a xiǎozhuàn (brief biography) — broadly on the example of Yuán Hǎowèn’s Zhōngzhōu jí — but the pǐnpíng kǎozhèng (criticism and textual-evidence) is added in more detail.

The late-Míng shīpài (poetic schools) — zuì wéi wúzá (most chaotic). At first, tired of the Tàicāng / Lìxià (Lǐ Pānlóng) tradition’s piāoxí (imitation-and-snatching), [poets] yī biàn ér qū qīngxīn (transformed in one direction to chase the fresh-new). Then again, tired of the Gōngān / Jìnglíng tiāoqiǎo, [they] yī biàn ér qū zhēnpǔ (transformed to chase the true-and-natural). Therefore, Guóchū zhūjiā (our dynasty’s early masters) somewhat yǐ chūrù Sòngshī (used the in-and-out of Sòng poetry) to jiǎo gōují túshì zhī bì (correct the defect of fish-hook-and-thorn ornamentation).

Zhīzhèn’s selection was made at that time. Because each poet’s collection was zì wéi jí (each its own collection), so as soon as one zhì (binding-of-juǎn) was printed, the imprint went out — so transmitted copies often differ in count. In this recension, 16 families have listing but no text — gài jījué wèijùn (the woodblock-cutting was not completed); so there is no complete collection.

Recent Cáo Tíngdòng (the Sòng bǎijiā shī cún compiler KR4h0167) found this incomplete and so produced the Sòngrén bǎijiā shī cún — yǐ bǔ qí quē (to supplement its gaps). All these are what Zhīzhèn had not recorded. Yet Zhīzhèn, in the remnant of yíjí sànyì (scattered-and-lost collections), chuàngyì sōuluó (created-the-idea-of and gathered) — making scholars dé jiàn liǎngSòng shīrén zhī yálüè (able to see the broad outline of the two-Sòng poets) — bù kě wèi zhī wú gōng (cannot be called without merit). With Tíngdòng’s book, the two mutually supplement (xiāng bǔjū) and xiāng fǔ ér xíng (proceed together as complements) — gù wèikě piānfèi qí yī (cannot abandon either). Reverently submitted, tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-in-Chief Jǐ Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. General Collator Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

Date. The compilation was assembled in the late 1660s by Wú Zhīzhèn with help from Lǚ Liúliáng and Wú Zìmù; first printed Kāngxī 11 (1672). The 16-poet gap reflects the printer’s failure to complete engraving — not Wú’s editorial intent.

Significance. (1) The Sòng shī chāo is the canonical pre-modern Sòng-poetry anthology — the first comprehensive Sòng-poetry compilation to organise by poet-with-biography, and the primary source for Sòng-poetry reading from 1672 onward. (2) The compilation’s appearance in 1672 coincided with the early-Qīng anti-imitation movement: the Liùjīng zé 六經皆 group around Lǚ Liúliáng (Wú’s co-editor) and the broader rebellion against Qián / Hòu qīzǐ dogma found in Sòng poetry an alternative model. Sòng poetry’s recovery in the early Qīng is one of the most consequential shifts in Chinese poetic taste; the Sòng shī chāo is the single most important text in that shift. (3) Wú’s biographical xiǎozhuàn method — adapted from Yuán Hǎowèn — made Sòng poets approachable as individuals rather than as members of the discredited Qián / Hòu qīzǐ-disparaged dynasty. (4) The compilation’s 16-poet gap was filled by Cáo Tíngdòng’s Sòng bǎijiā shī cún KR4h0167 — the two together form the complete pre-modern Sòng-poetry corpus until the modern Quán Sòng shī of 1991. (5) The Sìkù tíyào’s positive treatment of Wú’s compilation — despite Lǚ Liúliáng’s heretical reputation (Lǚ’s writings were proscribed by the Yōngzhèng emperor in 1729 and again by Qiánlóng) — shows the compilation’s importance to the Sìkù-era Sòng-poetry establishment.

Lǚ Liúliáng’s role. Lǚ Liúliáng (1629–1683) was a major early-Qīng anti-Manchu yímín (loyalist), and his name appears nowhere in the Sìkù tíyào’s description — although he was a significant co-editor of the original 1672 printing. The Sìkù commission carefully erased his presence (Lǚ’s writings had been ordered burned by Yōngzhèng in 1729 and Qiánlóng renewed the proscription), preserving only Wú Zhīzhèn’s name. Modern scholarship (Tom Fisher, Lynn Struve) has recovered Lǚ Liúliáng’s role in the original compilation.

Composition by poet. The 100 selected poets span the entire Sòng dynasty — Northern and Southern — including all major canonical figures (Ōuyáng Xiū, Méi Yáochén, Sū Shùnqīn, Wáng Ānshí, Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, Lù Yóu, Fàn Chéngdà, Yáng Wànlǐ, etc.) and many minor ones recoverable only from gazetteer / family-record sources.

Translations and research

• Yoshikawa Kōjirō, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, tr. Burton Watson (Cambridge MA, 1967) — uses the Sòng shī chāo substantially.
• Tom Fisher, “Lü Liu-liang (1629–83) and the Tseng Ching Case (1728–33),” Papers on Far Eastern History 27 (1983) — context for Lǚ Liú-liáng.
• 錢鍾書 Qián Zhōng-shū, Sòng shī xuǎn-zhù 宋詩選注 (Běi-jīng, 1957) — major modern Sòng-poetry anthology, partly in dialogue with the Sòng shī chāo.
• Stuart Sargent, The Poetry of He Zhu (1052–1125): Genres, Contexts, and Creativity (Leiden, 2007).
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.

Other points of interest

The Sòng shī chāo’s early-Qīng cultural-political moment — Wú Zhīzhèn’s 1672 HúzhōuHāngzhōu literary circle, Lǚ Liúliáng’s loyalist position, the parallel revival of Sòng gǔwén in the same milieu — makes the compilation more than a literary anthology: it is a document of the early-Qīng intellectual rebellion against the Míng cultural establishment and toward an alternative SòngYuánQīng line of descent. This political-cultural significance was already implicit in 1672 and explosive by 1728 (the Zēng Jìng case, in which Lǚ Liúliáng’s manuscripts implicated Wú’s circle in anti-Manchu thought).

Links

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