Cǎotáng cíyú 草堂詞餘
Lyrics Remainder from the Thatched Hall edited anonymously (Sòng 南宋)
About the work
The Cǎotáng shīyú 草堂詩餘 (the title in the catalog meta is given as Cǎotáng cíyú, but the standard transmitted title is shīyú) is the most popular and most widely circulated cí anthology in Chinese literary history — and the most reviled by serious-minded cí-philologists. The compilation is anonymous and was already circulating in the Qìngyuán reign (1195–1200), as attested by Wáng Mào’s 王楙 Yěkè cóngshū 野客叢書, which already cites a piece from the Cǎotáng by Zhāng Zhòngzōng 張仲宗. The volume’s organizing categories — xiǎolìng 小令 / zhōngdiào 中調 / chángdiào 長調 (short, middle, long tunes) by character-count — were here first introduced, and became the standard categorization of cí prosody for half a millennium, despite trenchant later criticism (Wàn Shù’s Cílǜ KR4j0087 famously denounces the system as mechanically rigid). The text Sìkù admits is the Míng Shànghǎi Gù Cóngjìng 顧從敬 cutting, expanded by some seventy tunes over earlier vulgar circulation and with substantial added cíhuà commentary.
Tiyao
Cǎotáng shīyú, four juǎn; no compiler’s name. Traditionally said to be Southern-Sòng. Examination of Wáng Mào’s Yěkè cóngshū, compiled in Qìngyuán: already it cites Cǎotáng shīyú’s Zhāng Zhòngzōng Mǎnjiānghóng piece to attest the phrase diéfěn fēnghuáng 蝶粉蜂黄. So the volume was in circulation before Qìngyuán. The categorization of cí into xiǎolìng, zhōngdiào, and chángdiào begins with this volume; later cípǔ take it as a model. Categorizing by character-count is mechanically rigid, and so was criticized by Wàn Shù’s Cílǜ; still, the family of tiáncí writers will not let the system go — for it is, after all, a working prosodic frame. Zhū Yízūn’s Cízōng KR4j0075 says “the Cǎotáng selection of cí — its compiler can be called blind” — bitterly contemptuous. Looking now at the contents: certainly mixed and unsifted, not the equal of the Huājiān and like anthologies; yet good and bad lie side by side, the gem-flaw not concealing the gem, and famous chapters and elegant phrases of the masters are also scattered through the volume. Sweeping condemnation, equally, is not just. This text is Gù Cóngjìng 顧從敬’s cutting in Shànghǎi (Míng). Hé Liángjùn praises it for having seventy more tunes than the editions then in circulation, having been cut from Gù’s family Sòng-print. The cutting is also earlier than Máo Jìn’s Jígǔ gé. The various cí in this version each have appended contemporary cíhuà commentary; the Jígǔ gé version omits all of these. The cited cíhuà include Huáng Shēng’s Huāān cíxuǎn KR4j0066 and Zhōu Mì’s Juémiào hǎocí — both late-Sòng — so the commentary is a later supplement, not the original. Still, the supplementations are not careless and are also useful for reference; we therefore preserve the volume entire. — Qiánlóng 44 / 1779, 3rd month.
Abstract
The Cǎotáng shīyú is the most-cut, most-read, and most-edited Sòng cí-anthology. The transmitted text is in successive recensions: an anonymous Southern-Sòng original (circulating by Qìngyuán, i.e. before 1200); a YuánMíng expansion; the Míng Shànghǎi Gù Cóngjìng cutting (with cíhuà commentary added); and Máo Jìn’s late-Míng Jígǔgé reissue (the commentary stripped out). The WYG admits the Gù Cóngjìng version. The preface translated above by Hé Liángjùn 何良俊 (a zhìfǔ of late-Míng qǔ-criticism) lays out a deliberate historical scheme for the rise of cí — Shījīng → Hàn yuèfǔ → Six-Dynasties + Táng gēcí → Sòng cí → JīnYuán qǔ — that became the standard pedagogical narrative. Editorially, the volume’s threefold classification by length and its inclusion of substantial cíhuà apparatus made it the standard cí-textbook of the late Míng. Its critical reputation, however, was always low: from Zhū Yízūn to Wàn Shù, it stands as the cautionary case of an over-popular anthology cited as authority by people who should know better.
Translations and research
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Mair, ed., Columbia History of Chinese Literature — extended discussion of Cǎo-táng anthology history.
- Wú Xióng-hé 吳熊和, Táng-Sòng cí tōng-lùn — anthology-history.
- Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry — discussion of how the Cǎo-táng shaped later cí-pedagogy.
Other points of interest
The threefold xiǎolìng / zhōngdiào / chángdiào classification — introduced here — remains the standard pedagogical division used in 21st-century Chinese-literature handbooks, despite Wàn Shù’s three-hundred-year-old denunciation of it as mechanical. The Cǎotáng’s popularity in the late Míng made it the principal vehicle by which Sòng cí was actually read in the MíngQīng — far more than the editor-respected Huāān cíxuǎn or Juémiào hǎocí.