紫薇詩話

Zǐwēi shīhuà 紫薇詩話

Zǐ-wēi’s Remarks on Poetry by 呂本中 (撰)

About the work

The Zǐwēi shīhuà 紫薇詩話 (sometimes written 紫微詩話, as in the Sìkù tíyào), in one juǎn, is the shīhuà of Lǚ Běnzhōng 呂本中 (1084–1145, zì Jūrén 居仁, hào Zǐwēi 紫微) — the major Northern-to-Southern-Sòng transition figure of the great Lǚ lineage of Shòuzhōu 壽州, classicist, lǐxué scholar, and the systematizer of the Jiāngxī poetic school. Compiled with the catalog date 1136 (年代: 紹興六年), at a time when Lǚ was Zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人 (a post identified institutionally with the Hànlín Zǐwēi shěng 紫微省, whence both the author’s hào and the title), the work is a personal shīhuà — discursive, anecdotal, biographically grounded — that records his family circle, friends, teachers, and the literary atmosphere of the Yuányòu school as inherited by the early Southern Sòng. Although Lǚ is the man who formalized the Jiāngxī zōngpài tú 江西宗派圖 (placing Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 as the jiā and twenty-four others as descendants), the Zǐwēi shīhuà is conspicuously open in taste — citing Lǐ Shāngyǐn, recording cí, and emphatically not narrowing onto Huáng.

Tiyao

Zǐwēi shīhuà, by Lǚ Běnzhōng of the Sòng. Běnzhōng has a Chūnqiū jíjiě 春秋集解, already catalogued. Běnzhōng’s career passed through Zhōngshū shèrén 中書舍人 and acting Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士; poetic society called him “Lǚ Zǐwēi” 呂紫微, and his shīhuà takes Zǐwēi for its name. Within it, the entries on Lǐ Dǐngzuò’s 李鼎祚 Yìjiě touch on the Classics; the Qín Guān 秦觀 Huánglóu fù entries reach into miscellaneous prose; the Wú Chóu 吳儔 dàoyǔ entries indulge in joking — but the main thrust is on poetry.

Lǚ’s xué came from Huáng Tíngjiān. He once compiled the Jiāngxī zōngpài tú 江西宗派圖, taking Huáng as the founder and listing Chén Shīdào 陳師道 and twenty-three others as a sequence beneath. The factionalist division of Sòng poetry begins precisely from this. Yet though Lǚ took the fǎ from Yùzhāng (= Huáng Tíngjiān), in this volume only one Fàn Yuánshí entry, one cóngshū Zhīzhǐ entry, one Cháo Shūyòng entry, two Pān Bīnlǎo entries, and one Cháo Wújiù entry speak of Huáng (and all of these by way of someone else, not for Huáng’s own sake); only one Ōuyáng Jìmò entry actually treats Huáng’s poetry. The rest record family lore and friends’ recent writings; figures like Héngqú Zhāngzǐ 横渠張子 (Zhāng Zài) and Yīchuān Chéngzǐ 伊川程子 (Chéng Yí) appear — so the book is not partisan to one school. He praises Lǐ Shāngyǐn’s Chóng guò shèngnǚ cí 重過聖女祠 — “Yī chūn mèng yǔ cháng piāo wǎ, jìn rì líng fēng bù mǎn qí” — and Chángé 嫦娥 — “Chángé yīng huǐ tōu líng yào, bì hǎi qīng tiān yè yè xīn” — so the doctrinal range too is not a single style. The genre at this point was still in early development — even where Lǚ produced new ideas, he continued to draw on many traditions. Only when later writers (e.g. Fāng Huí 方回) elevated the “one zǔ three zōng” 一祖三宗 doctrine did the Xīkūn 西崑 and Jiāngxī schools come to be regarded as fire and ice. The Zhōngzhōu jí postface by Yuán Hǎowèn 元好問 — “the northerner does not lick the Jiāngxī spittle; need not wait until Mr. Zēng lends his teeth” — is in fact the polemic of late-stage rivalry; the inflammation came later. From this book we know it was not so at the start.

Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禎’s Gǔfūyútíng zálù 古夫于亭雜錄 says: the Zǐwēi shīhuà records Zhāng Zǐhòu (= Zhāng Zài)‘s poem — “Jǐng Dān yǐ yàn cháng cōng yè, Yǔ Liàng hé láo xī xiè gēn” — citing Sān jiǔ and Èrshíqī — but the Sān jiǔ is the affair of Yǔ Gǎozhī 庾杲之 (not Yǔ Liàng); Zhāng Zǐhòu was mistaken in his use, and Lǚ failed to flag the error. Now examining the Nán Qí shū Yǔ Gǎozhī zhuàn 南齊書庾杲之傳: Gǎozhī in poverty kept to himself, eating only pickled jiǔ-leek, blanched jiǔ-leek, fresh jiǔ-leek, and mixed vegetables; someone teasing him said “who calls Yǔláng poor? his salt-fish always has 27 dishes” — Gǎozhī’s case is about jiǔ leek (韭) not xiè shallot (薤). The Jìn shū Yǔ Liàng zhuàn records Liàng eating xiè and leaving the white root, Táo Kǎn 陶侃 asking why, Liàng saying “so it can be replanted” — this is the YǔLiàng-xiè episode. So “regretting the xiè” is in fact Yǔ Liàng’s deed, having nothing to do with Yǔ Gǎozhī. Here Wáng Shìzhēn has slipped in memory — how can he then turn around and fault Běnzhōng for failing to flag the error?

Abstract

The Zǐwēi shīhuà is the personal-anecdotal shīhuà of the late-Northern / early-Southern Sòng’s most influential poetic theorist. Compiled in 1136 — the date carried in the catalog meta and consistent with internal references — while Lǚ was holding the Zhōngshū shèrén office (whence both the hào and the title), it transmits a layered picture of the early Southern-Sòng literary world: the great Lǚ family lineage (Lǚ Gōngzhuó 呂公著, Lǚ Xīzhé 呂希哲, and Lǚ Hǎowèn 呂好問 in three generations of central officials), the Yuányòu poetic circle (Sū Shì 蘇軾, Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅, Chén Shīdào 陳師道, Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之, the Pān 潘 brothers), the Lǐxué scholars Zhāng Zài 張載 and Chéng Yí 程頤, and the late-Táng-influenced Lǐ Shāngyǐn 李商隱.

The book is methodologically important as the principal contemporary witness to the formation of the Jiāngxī shīpài 江西詩派. Lǚ’s Jiāngxī zōngpài tú 江西宗派圖 — the prose lineage-document, separately transmitted — is the founding charter of the school, and made Huáng Tíngjiān its zǔ with twenty-four descendant zōng including Chén Shīdào, Hán Jū 韓駒, Xú Fú 徐俯, and Lǚ himself. The Sìkù editors make the historically-important point that despite the Zōngpài tú’s schematic exclusivity, Lǚ’s actual practice in the shīhuà is open: he reads Lǐ Shāngyǐn approvingly, cites Zhāng Zài and Chéng Yí, includes light-hearted joking entries, and treats Huáng Tíngjiān as one master among several. The factionalist hardening into Xīkūn 西崑 vs Jiāngxī and the “one zǔ three zōng” (Dù Fǔ as zǔ, plus Huáng, Chén Shīdào, and Chén Yǔyì 陳與義 as the three zōng) doctrine was the work of later figures — pre-eminently Fāng Huí 方回 in the Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ 瀛奎律髓 of the late Sòng / Yuán — and not the founder’s own position.

The book transmits in two recensions: the Sìkù / WYG recension (writing the title 紫微) and the Lìdài shīhuà 歷代詩話 (Hé Wénhuàn 1770) recension (writing 紫薇 throughout). The two characters 微 / 薇 are interchangeable in this context (the Zǐwēi shěng 紫微省 = Zhōngshū shěng designation). The Kanripo catalog uses 紫薇.

Translations and research

• Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Harvard, 1992) — extensive use of Lǚ Běn-zhōng in the discussion of Jiāng-xī poetics.
• Liú Nǎi-chāng 劉乃昌, Lǚ Běn-zhōng yán-jiū 呂本中研究 (Qí-Lǔ shū-shè, 1995).
• Mò Lì-fēng 莫礪鋒, Jiāng-xī shī-pài yán-jiū 江西詩派研究 (Qí-Lǔ shū-shè, 1986) — the standard modern monograph on the school; central role for Lǚ.
• Hé Wén-huàn 何文煥, ed., Lì-dài shī-huà 歷代詩話 (1770; rpt. Zhōnghuá, 1981) — convenient critical text.
• Guō Shào-yú 郭紹虞, Sòng shī-huà kǎo 宋詩話考 (Zhōnghuá, 1979) — bibliographic study.
• Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎, Sòng shī gài-shuō 宋詩概說 (Beijing: SDX, 1987 Chinese tr. of 1962 Iwanami original) — places Lǚ in the broader Sòng poetic history.
• Egan, Ronald, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Harvard, 2006).

Other points of interest

The Zǐwēi shīhuà is the principal source for the doctrine of huófǎ 活法 (“the living method”) — the Jiāngxī school’s response to the rigidity of strict imitation that Huáng Tíngjiān’s duótāi huàngǔ threatened to ossify into. Lǚ’s formulation — preserved in entries quoted by Hú Zǎi 胡仔’s Cónghuà KR4i0029 — is that the Jiāngxī method must be applied with the freedom of immediate response, not as a mechanical replication. The doctrine became the central concept of the school’s second generation and a fixed term in Sòng poetic theory.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.5.
• Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào
• Hé Wénhuàn ed., Lìdài shīhuà (Zhōnghuá rpt., 1981).