Yúshūtáng shīhuà 娛書堂詩話
Poetry Talks from the Hall of Book-Delight by 趙與虤 (撰)
About the work
The Yúshūtáng shīhuà 娛書堂詩話, in a single juǎn, is a late-Southern-Sòng shīhuà by Zhào Yǔyán 趙與虤 — a tenth-generation descendant of Sòng Tàizǔ 太祖 by way of the imperial-clan Zōngshì biǎo and a member of the jiānghú literary milieu of the Shàodìng–Chúnyòu period. The book moves in the late-jiānghú register: poems by Lù Yóu, Yáng Wànlǐ 楊萬里, and Lóu Yuè 樓鑰 in their late years, by Zhāng Hào 張淏 (whose Yúngǔ zájì 雲谷雜記 of 1219 it quotes), by Jiāng Kuí 姜夔, by Zhōu Bìdà 周必大 in retirement — together with a great many minor and anonymous late-Sòng pieces that survive nowhere else. The book is at once a witness to the dispersal of late-Sòng poetry into ephemeral hands and a late-Sòng polemic against the lingering Jiāngxī manner.
Tiyao
Yúshūtáng shīhuà, in one juǎn, by Zhào Yǔyán of the Sòng. The character 虤 reads, by Jíyùn, niúxián qiē (i.e. yán); Shuōwén glosses it as “the snarl of two tigers” (虎怒) — hence his zì Wēibó 威伯 (“Eldest of Awe”). By the generational sequence of the Sòngshǐ Zōngshì biǎo 宋史宗室表, he was a tenth-generation descendant of Tàizǔ. The book repeatedly cites the late writings of Lù Yóu, Yáng Wànlǐ, and Lóu Yuè, and it quotes Zhāng Hào’s Yúngǔ zájì; this places him after the reign of Sòng Níngzōng (i.e., after c. 1224). His general critical stance is shényùntuōsǎ 神韻脫灑 (spirit-resonance and unrestrained ease); he cites Yáng Wànlǐ’s preface to the Qiānyán zhāigǎo 千巖摘稿 of Xiāo Déchǎo 蕭德藻 and Jiāng Kuí’s self-preface to the Báishí shīgǎo 白石詩稿 with the clear implication that the Jiāngxī manner had reached the limit of its usefulness — his programme is plain. He was active at the cusp of the SòngYuán transition, when the poetic field was shifting and scholars were tired of warmed-over Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 and Chén Shīdào 陳師道 imitations, and were seeking qīngxīn 清新 (freshness) as a corrective. His remarks bear this out — even if they are not in every case the soundest verdicts of poetic theory. From them, however, the rising and falling of one period’s literary atmosphere can be quite clearly glimpsed. His other citations are quite detailed and reliable, with much to commend them as sources for textual study. (Imperial editorial colophon, Qiánlóng 42 / 1777.)
Abstract
The Yúshūtáng shīhuà cannot be precisely dated. The terminus post quem is 1219, the year of the preface to Zhāng Hào’s Yúngǔ zájì, which the shīhuà quotes. The conventional floruit of 1231 (catalog meta) is consistent with the text’s references to late writings of Lù Yóu (d. 1210), Yáng Wànlǐ (d. 1206), and Lóu Yuè (d. 1213) — implying composition some time after their deaths but still within living memory of their circle. A composition window of c. 1219–1240 is therefore defensible.
The book is structured loosely, with most items running one or two paragraphs: anecdotes and short píng (assessments) on individual poems. The repertoire is, characteristically, an inventory of the jiānghú canon: Luó Yǐn 羅隱, Fàn Zhòngyān 范仲淹 (on the Diàotái 釣臺), Gāo Duānshū 高端叔 (on rain), Máo Guóyīng 毛國英 (on Yuè Fēi 岳飛), Sēng Yóu Yàndàng 沙門遊鴈宕, Wéi Zhěn 危稹’s farewell verse for Cháilínháng 柴中行’s retirement, Xú Dézhī 徐得之 on Wáng Zhāojūn 王昭君 Míngfēi qǔ 明妃曲, Huáng Jūwàn 黃居萬 on Pubù 瀑布 (waterfall), an anonymous Guīfēng 龜峯 poem, Zhōu Gǎo 周鎬 on rain, Lú Yīngshí 劉應時 (in Yáng Wànlǐ’s citation), Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵’s juvenile poem on the ShíYánshēng 石延年 YíQí temple, Xú Sìdào 徐似道 and Yáng Wànlǐ’s mutual exchange poems, the Diàotái of Zhào Héng 趙橫, Bái Jūyì 白居易’s “in the days when the Duke of Zhōu feared accusations” 周公恐懼流言日, and many others. The two purely-philological items in the book (one on Qián Wéiyǎn’s 錢惟演 Wútí shī “yè cháng wéi yǒu bìhán jīn” 夜長惟有辟寒金, the other on Yáng Yì’s Wútí shī “sǐ huì wén chéng shí mǎgān” 死諱文成食馬肝) the Sìkù editors judge harshly: the first defensible, the second tortured.
The Yúshūtáng shīhuà survives because the Sìkù editors recovered it from the Tiānyīgé 天一閣 collection of Fàn Mòzhù 范懋柱 in Zhèjiāng. There is no Sòng impression. The book was reprinted in the Lìdài shīhuà xùbiān 歷代詩話續編 of Dīng Fúbǎo 丁福保 (1916) and in the Sòng shīhuà quánbiān 宋詩話全編 (1998).
Translations and research
- Dīng Fúbǎo 丁福保, ed., Lì-dài shī-huà xù-biān 歷代詩話續編 (1916; Zhōnghuá repr. 1983) — standard pre-modern anthology containing the Yúshū-táng.
- Wú Wén-zhì 吳文治, ed., Sòng shīhuà quán-biān 宋詩話全編, vol. 9 (Jiāngsū gǔjí, 1998) — modern collation.
- Cài Jìnxiáng 蔡鎮楚, Zhōngguó shīhuà shǐ 中國詩話史 (Húnán wén-yì, 1988) — bibliographic context.
- No substantial monograph dedicated specifically to the Yúshū-táng shīhuà located.
Other points of interest
The Yúshūtáng shīhuà is one of the principal late-Sòng witnesses to the dispersal of poetry into the jiānghú (rivers-and-lakes) circuits — the loose network of unofficial poets active outside the metropolitan literary establishment in the Shàodìng–Chúnyòu decades. Many of the poems Zhào quotes are by figures who appear in no other surviving record. The book is therefore a major source for the late-Sòng poetic field as it was lived rather than as it was canonised by Yán Yǔ’s 嚴羽 Cānglàng shīhuà (KR4i0035) or Liú Kèzhuāng’s 劉克莊 Hòucūn shīhuà (KR4i0037). The work’s anti-Jiāngxī polemic — articulated through approving citation of Yáng Wànlǐ’s and Jiāng Kuí’s prefaces rather than by direct argument — is also a useful counterweight to Yán Yǔ’s High-Táng absolutism: Zhào shares Yán’s rejection of the Jiāngxī manner but defends a different alternative, qīngxīn over miàowù.
Links
- Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào
- Wikidata: no entry.