修辭鑑衡

Xiūcí jiànhéng 修辭鑑衡

Standard for Weighing the Refinement of Language by 王構 (編)

About the work

The Xiūcí jiànhéng 修辭鑑衡, in two juǎn, is a Yuán-period anthology of Sòng critical writings on poetry and prose, compiled by Wáng Gòu 王構 (1245–1310; zì Kěntáng 肯堂; Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ under Khubilai). The upper juǎn gathers remarks on poetry (shī lùn); the lower gathers remarks on prose (wén lùn). The materials are drawn entirely from Sòng shīhuà, prose collections, and shuōbù — Wáng’s own contributions are limited to a single concluding paragraph in the lower juǎn. The book was first compiled while Wáng was Jǐnán zǒngguǎn 濟南總管 (sometime in the late Zhìyuán to Dàdé eras, i.e. ca. 1290–1310) and transmitted by him to a Liú-surname disciple; the book was first printed at Jíqìnglù 集慶路 (Jiànkāng) following a preface by Wáng Lǐ 王理 dated Zhìshùn 4 (1333). Its principal scholarly value is as a quotational archive: it preserves substantial passages from the Shīwén fāyuán 詩文發源, the Shī xiàn 詩憲, and Pú Sònglíng’s 蒲松齡 namesake’s Púshì mànzhāi lù 蒲氏漫齋錄 — all otherwise lost — and supplies thirty-one passages of the Lǚshì tóngméng xùn 呂氏童蒙訓 absent from the late-Sòng / Yuán cut editions.

Tiyao

Xiūcí jiànhéng, two juǎn. Edited by Wáng Gòu of the Yuán. Gòu’s zì was Kěntáng; he was of Dōngpíng. He rose to Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ; posthumous name Wénsù 文肅. His career is set out in the Yuánshǐ main biography. According to Wáng Lǐ’s preface, dated Zhìshùn 4 (1333), the book was originally compiled by Wáng Gòu while he was Jǐnán zǒngguǎn and presented to his disciple of the Liú surname; Lǐ had it cut for printing at Jíqìnglù. The old recension was worm-damaged: its opening pages are lost, and the personal name of the Liú-surname disciple is now unrecoverable.

The upper juǎn discusses poetry; the lower juǎn discusses prose. Both are drawn from Sòng shīhuà and from prose-collections and shuōbù. Wáng Gòu’s own appended commentary is restricted to a single concluding paragraph in the lower juǎn. The materials selected, though much of the language is already familiar, are picked and rejected with real discrimination. The Yuánshǐ records that Gòu was selected by cífù (rhapsody-and-lyric-composition) examination at the age of capping (twenty); in Zhìyuán 11 (1274) he was biānxiū of the Hànlín Guóshǐyuàn and drafted the imperial edict for the war on the Sòng, an act praised by Shìzǔ. It further records that Gòu was thoroughly versed in Táigé precedent and that all the imperial posthumous-discussions and ceremonial cè documents under his predecessors were drafted by him. It also notes that his sons Shìxī and Shìdiǎn were both able to carry on the family literary tradition. So Gòu was, in his own day, a writer of real eminence — and it is fitting that the materials chosen by him for this compilation should show real discrimination.

Among the quoted sources are the Shīwén fāyuán 詩文發源, the Shī xiàn 詩憲, the Púshì mànzhāi lù 蒲氏漫齋錄, and similar works — all now lost. Thanks to this book, fragments survive. Further: the Lǚshì tóngméng xùn 呂氏童蒙訓 transmitted in the world is incomplete, and the present book quotes thirty-one passages of it that are not in the received cut text — useful for kǎozhèng. Compared with the Shī huà zǒng guī 詩話總龜 and the like — vast in bulk but indiscriminate — this book is sharper, and is in fact a useful compass-needle for those concerned with the arts of letters.

This book is long out of print and has been transmitted only in copies, with many transcription errors. Notably, ten passages in the body of the work do not carry source-attributions; in the upper juǎn the fifth page is missing; the preface survives only as its last page; and there are scattered missing characters. We have supplied what we could from cross-references, and where no source is recoverable have followed the original text — leaving the lacunae to preserve its received state.

Abstract

The Xiūcí jiànhéng belongs to a small but important early-Yuán genre of “synoptic compendia of Sòng literary criticism” — books in which Yuán-period writers, looking back on a Sòng critical archive much of which would not survive the Mongol conquest, gathered the most distinctive passages into convenient reference compilations. The Xiūcí jiànhéng is the most influential of these and is more carefully sifted than most. Its scholarly utility, both in its own time and in modern reception, is thus quotational rather than constructive: it preserves Sòng critical voices that would otherwise be lost.

Wáng Gòu’s literary background fits the work. Selected by cífù examination in the late Mongol period, he made his career under Khubilai as one of the principal Hànlín drafters — composing the imperial declaration of war on the Sòng — and rose to Hànlín xuéshì chéngzhǐ, the highest position at the academy. His Yuánshǐ biography (juǎn 164) emphasises his command of Táigé prose tradition (court-secretariat precedent for imperial documents) and his role in establishing the literary apparatus of the early Yuán court. The composition of the Xiūcí jiànhéng during his Jǐnán prefectship — a substantial post he held in the late Zhìyuán to Dàdé eras (ca. 1290–1310) — would have been a private project that consolidated the Sòng critical tradition for the new Yuán literary culture.

The composition bracket adopted here — 1280 to 1310 — is anchored by Wáng’s death in 1310 (it cannot be later) and by his presence at Jǐnán in the late Zhìyuán era (the earliest plausible terminus). A tighter bracket is not defensible from the surviving evidence; the Sìkù preface, the Yuánshǐ biography, and Wáng Lǐ’s 1333 preface together fix only the upper bound (1310).

The book was lost in independent transmission by the late Míng / early Qīng; the Sìkù edition was reconstructed from Wāng Rúzǎo 汪如藻’s family copy, itself derived from the Jíqìnglù Yuán printing. Modern reprints derive from the Sìkù recension.

The book is sometimes also titled Yuán Wáng Wénsù gōng xiūcí jiànhéng 元王文肅公修辭鑑衡; the Wénsù style is Wáng’s posthumous name.

Translations and research

• Wáng Shuǐ-zhào 王水照, ed., Lì-dài wén-huà huì biān 歷代文話彙編 (Fù-dàn dà-xué, 2007), reprints the Xiū-cí jiàn-héng with collation.
• Guō Shào-yú 郭紹虞, Sòng shī-huà jí yì 宋詩話輯佚 (Zhōnghuá, 1980 reprint) — uses Xiū-cí jiàn-héng as a principal source for reconstructing the lost Shī-wén fā-yuán and Shī xiàn.
• Cài Zhèn-chǔ 蔡鎮楚, Zhōng-guó shī-huà shǐ 中國詩話史 (Húnán wén-yì, 1988; rev. 2001).
• Wáng Yùn-xī 王運熙 and Gù Yì-shēng 顧易生, eds., Zhōng-guó wén-xué pī-píng tōng shǐ — Sòng Jīn Yuán juǎn (Shàng-hǎi gǔ-jí, 1996).

Other points of interest

The Xiūcí jiànhéng is one of three or four early-Yuán Sòng-critical reference compendia (alongside Fāng Huí’s 方回 Yíngkuí lǜ suǐ 瀛奎律髓 (KR4h0030 not in this division but a parallel project) and Wèi Qìngzhī’s 魏慶之 Shī rén yù xiè 詩人玉屑 KR4i0040) that preserve a large fraction of the otherwise-lost Sòng critical archive. It is the Sìkù editors’ explicit comparison with these other works that allows them to call Wáng’s selection “sharper” than the Shī huà zǒng guī.

Links

• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §30.5.
• Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào
• Wikidata Q11160155 (修辭鑑衡).