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漁隱叢話

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Text ID
KR4i0029
Date
1148–1167
Dynasty
宋

Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà 苕溪漁隱叢話

The Tiáo-xī Recluse-Fisher’s Collected Talks by 胡仔 (撰)

About the work

The Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà 苕溪漁隱叢話 (also and properly Yúyǐn cónghuà 漁隱叢話, the catalog short title), in one hundred juǎn (前集 60 + 後集 40), is the largest and most influential single shīhuà compilation of the Sòng dynasty. Its author, Hú Zǐ 胡仔 (zì Yuánrèn 元任, c. 1110 – c. 1170), styled himself Tiáoxī yúyǐn 苕溪漁隱 (“the Tiáoxī recluse-fisher”) after his retirement to the Tiáo Creek at Wúxìng 吳興 following the political fall and death of his father Hú Shùnzhì 胡舜陟 (1083–1143) under the chancellor Qín Huì. The book was assembled as an explicit continuation and corrective of Ruǎn Yuè’s 阮閱 Shīhuà zǒngguī 詩話總龜 KR4i0012: Hú’s own preface to the qiánjí of 1148 notes that Ruǎn’s compilation, completed in Xuānhé guǐmǎo (1123) when the Yuányòu writings were still proscribed, had dropped almost all the late-Northern-Sòng material, so that Hú’s purpose was to fill that gap. The hòují, completed nearly twenty years later (around 1167), supplements the qiánjí with further finds and with material on Southern-Sòng poets down to Hú’s own day. The work is the principal Sòng-period gateway for the modern reader to the entire corpus of Northern- and early Southern-Sòng shīhuà literature, and is the single most-cited critical apparatus in modern Sòng-poetry scholarship.

Tiyao

Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà, qiánjí sixty juǎn, hòují forty juǎn, by Hú Zǐ of the Sòng. Zǐ’s zì was Yuánrèn; he was a native of Jìxī, son of Shùnzhì. By hereditary preferment he was appointed Dígōng láng in the LiǎngZhè Transport Commission; he rose in office to Fèngyì láng, prefect of Jìnlíng county in Chángzhōu. He later settled in Húzhōu and styled himself Tiáoxī yúyǐn. His book continues Ruǎn Yuè’s Shīhuà zǒngguī. The author’s preface says: “What Ruǎn had recorded, I do not record” — so that the two books complement each other. Together they cover, in summary, the shīhuà literature from before the Northern Sòng. But Ruǎn’s book records mostly miscellaneous matter and is close to xiǎoshuō, while this book gives more weight to discussion of meaning and inspection of doctrine, with the selection and rejection more carefully judged. Ruǎn’s book uses classified arrangement, with many headings; this one is arranged simply by the chronological order of the poets, with those who could “form a house” given by name, and gleanings and stray couplets either appended below or grouped together — the editorial form is also clearer. Ruǎn’s book just collects old material with no critical apparatus; this one mostly appends biànzhèng (textual and critical verification) — particularly serviceable for consultation and correction. For these reasons Ruǎn’s book has not been much valued by the world, whereas this book is drawn on by every house. The Xīnān wénxiàn zhì 新安文獻志 cites Fāng Huí’s 方回 Yúyǐn cónghuà kǎo 漁隱叢話考: “Yuánrèn, sojourning at Zhàshàng, said of Ruǎn Hóngxiū [Ruǎn Yuè]‘s Shī zǒng, that it was completed in Xuānhé guǐmǎo, leaving out the Yuányòu worthies; so he supplemented and assembled, from the Guófēng, the HànWèi, and the Six Dynasties down to the start of the Southern Crossing — the greatest houses he set out by name, the rest he entered as miscellaneous notes, with time-order as the criterion. I was fond of this book as a boy; my poetry-study really begins there. Yuánrèn took Hóngxiū’s classification-by-heading to be wrong. One Tāng Yánqǐ 湯巖起 — a fellow-townsman of Hóngxiū — wrote a Shīhǎi yízhū 詩海遺珠 taking Yuánrèn to be wrong. I have it on the word of Luó Rènchén 羅任臣 of our prefecture that the trouble with Yuánrèn is the mediocre quality of the poems he records of his own. As for taking the poets in chronological order, with some shīhuà taken and some passed over, with occasional judgment in his own voice — compared to those of the Huángcháo lèiyuàn 皇朝類苑 sort who put it all in a heap, is this not the better way?” Even if this is village talk, it is in any case not unfair.

Abstract

The Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà was compiled in two stages from Hú Zǐ’s retreat at Tiáo Creek, Wúxìng. The qiánjí’s 60 juǎn (with the author’s preface dated Shàoxīng wùchén = 1148) covers from the Shījīng and Sāo tradition through the Hàn-Wèi-Six-Dynasties, the entire Táng, and the Northern Sòng down to the late-Yuányòu generation that Ruǎn Yuè had omitted; the hòují’s 40 juǎn (preface dated Qiándào 3 = 1167) extends coverage into the Southern Sòng to Hú’s own day, with substantial new material on Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, Chén Shīdào, and the early-Southern-Sòng Jiāngxī poets. The two collections together preserve thousands of entries extracted from named shīhuà, biéjí, bǐjì, and dynastic histories — at least sixty distinct shīhuà are cited by name, and many of them survive only through Hú’s quotations. Hú Zǐ’s editorial method is famously strict: he names his sources; he arranges material under the poet (not by topic, as Ruǎn had done); he appends critical biànzhèng remarks in his own voice (“yúyǐn yuē” 漁隱曰) at the end of nearly every poet’s section. The latter is the work’s most distinctive feature and the basis for its enduring scholarly authority.

The book is the principal Sòng-period source for: (i) the entire late-Yuányòu school of Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, Qín Guān 秦觀, Zhāng Lěi 張耒, Cháo Bǔzhī 晁補之, Chén Shīdào, and Hè Zhù — for many of these poets Hú preserves shīhuà material lost in every other transmission; (ii) the early-Southern-Sòng Jiāngxī lineage of Lǚ Běnzhōng 呂本中 and Céng Jǐ 曾幾, with whom Hú had personal contact; (iii) the entire Chinese-language reception of Dù Fǔ down to 1167 — Hú’s section on Dù is the most extensive Sòng-period critical compilation of Dù material before the great Qīng commentaries. The Sìkù editors record Fāng Huí’s verdict that the book is the principal shīhuà on which “every house draws” — a verdict that two centuries of subsequent reception has confirmed.

Textual transmission has been continuous. The Sòng manuscript transmission is reconstructible from citations in the Bīntuì lù, the Shīrén yùxiè KR4i0036, and the Hèlín yùlù 鶴林玉露 of Luó Dàjīng 羅大經 (1248). The earliest extant printing is the late-Sòng Húzhōu impression preserved in the National Library (Beijing); thereafter a Míng Wànlì 33 (1605) re-cutting by Wú Màoshǔ 吳茂叔 became the standard text into the Qīng. The Sìkù recension descends from this Wànlì line. The standard modern critical edition is Liào Démíng 廖德明 punctuated edition (Rénmín wénxué, 1962; rev. 1981 and 1984), which collates against the Sòng manuscript fragments and major Míng impressions; it remains the most-cited form. The most recent rigorous scholarly study of the work’s textual history is Liú Shījūn 劉石軍’s Hú Zǐ yǔ Tiáoxī yúyǐn cónghuà yánjiū (Zhōnghuá, 2010).

Translations and research

  • Liào Dé-míng 廖德明, ed., Tiáo-xī yú-yǐn cóng-huà (Rénmín wénxué, 1962; rev. 1981, 1984) — the standard modern punctuated edition.
  • Guō Shào-yǔ 郭紹虞, Sòng shīhuà kǎo 宋詩話考 (Zhōnghuá, 1979), 86–92 — the foundational modern bibliographical study, with a complete list of named shīhuà cited.
  • Liú Shī-jūn 劉石軍, Hú Zǐ yǔ Tiáo-xī yú-yǐn cóng-huà yán-jiū 胡仔與苕溪漁隱叢話研究 (Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 2010) — recent comprehensive study.
  • Wú Wén-zhì 吳文治 et al., comp., Sòng shīhuà quán biān 宋詩話全編 (Jiāng-sū guǎn-líng, 1998) — uses the Cóng-huà as the chief reservoir for reconstructing lost shīhuà.
  • Stuart H. Sargent, The Poetry of He Zhu (1052–1125): Genres, Contexts, and Creativity (Brill, 2007) — uses the Cóng-huà extensively as the principal repository of contemporary criticism on Hè Zhù.
  • Zhōu Yù-chí 周裕鍇, Sòng-dài shī-xué tōng lùn 宋代詩學通論 (Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 1997) — repeated reference to the Cóng-huà as the central evidentiary base for Sòng poetic theory.

Other points of interest

The work is structurally innovative in its combination of three editorial methods (chronological arrangement; source-naming; first-person critical apparatus) that became standard in subsequent encyclopedic shīhuà — Hé Wénhuàn’s Lìdài shīhuà, Dīng Fúbǎo’s Lìdài shīhuà xùbiān, and the modern Sòng shīhuà quán biān all follow the model laid down here. The book is also notable for the political circumstances of its composition: Hú Zǐ’s father had died in prison under Qín Huì in 1143, and Hú spent the remaining twenty-five years of his life in semi-retirement near Wúxìng — the work’s calm scholarly tone masks a position of considerable political marginalization. The Cónghuà’s sub-title Yúyǐn (“recluse-fisher”) embeds this stance directly in the work’s identity. Comparative note: where Ruǎn Yuè’s earlier Shīhuà zǒngguī is closer to biéjí / xiǎoshuō, Hú Zǐ’s Cónghuà established the model for the shīhuà as a research instrument.

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