Zhūshāntáng cíhuà 渚山堂詞話
Discourses on Cí from the Zhū-shān Studio by 陳霆 (撰)
About the work
The Zhūshāntáng cíhuà 渚山堂詞話 is the cíhuà (informal critical compendium on cí) of Chén Tíng 陳霆 (zì Shēngbó), the Hóngzhì / Zhèngdé / Jiājīng scholar-official. Three juǎn. The volume is a working SòngYuánMíng cí-criticism: anecdotes of composition, technical observations, source-of-allusion attributions, and an unusually generous pickup of yìpiān duànjù — lost pieces and fragmentary lines — of SòngYuánMíng cí-writers not otherwise preserved. Modern Sòng cí textual studies (Tāng Guīzhāng 唐圭璋, Quán Sòng cí) cite the Zhūshāntáng cíhuà as a major source for yìpiān recovery — e.g. Xú Yīchū 徐一初’s Chóngyáng dēnggāo piece, otherwise lost. The volume is bound together with Chén’s Zhūshāntáng shīhuà; the Sìkù admits the cíhuà and rejects the shīhuà.
Tiyao
Zhūshāntáng cíhuà, three juǎn. By Chén Tíng of the Míng. Tíng’s zì was Shēngbó, of Déqīng; jìnshì of Hóngzhì rénxū / 1502; rose to Shānxī tíxué qiānshì. This volume was cut at the same time as his shīhuà and is the better of the two. Chén’s shī-style runs to the fine and slight, which suits cí; thus turning his attention to cí exploits his strength. Where, however, he writes that Wéi Zhuāng’s yǔ yú fēng ruǎn suì míngqín 雨餘風軟碎鳴禽 line uses the suì (broken) sense from Dù Xúnhè’s Chūngōng yuàn and from Nán Zhuó’s Jiégǔ lù, where it means “the rising-and-falling broken-and-far sound” — and so means “fine, broken, jumbled” — but then on the strength of this changes the line to nuǎn fēng jiāo niǎo suì míng yīn 暖風嬌鳥碎鳴音 — that is turning gold into iron. Or where he writes that Yáng Mèngzài’s Xuě cí line sùsù yángyáng 簌簌颺颺 has no ancient source, and on the strength of Huáng Tíngjiān changes it to shūshū mìmì 疏疏密密 — but where Huáng wrote shūshū mìmì about snow, what was his ancient source? Yet his other judgments are mostly sound, and his SòngYuánMíng yìpiān (lost-pieces) and duànjù (fragmentary lines) — such as Xú Yīchū’s Jiǔrì dēnggāo piece — and the recovery of Wáng Zhāoyí’s Mǎnjiānghóng piece (composed for her sub-palace lady Zhāng Qióngyīng), and of the Chuíyáng yùěr zhuìjīnhuán 2-piece qǔ not preserved in any old TángSòng cípǔ, etc. — these are of evident reference value. It is one of the better Míng cíhuà. — Qiánlóng 41 / 1776, 10th month.
Abstract
The Zhūshāntáng cíhuà was composed across Chén’s working life (after his 1502 jìnshì), with the bulk of the entries probably written in the 1510s–1530s. The transmitted text is in three juǎn. The work’s principal value is bibliographic: as the Sìkù tíyào notes, several SòngYuán cí pieces are preserved only here. The Wáng Zhāoyí attribution of the Mǎnjiānghóng (composed for her sub-palace lady Zhāng Qióngyīng during the SòngYuán transition) is the single most-cited entry: it provides a textual witness for one of the famous SòngYuán women’s cí. Modern editions of Quán Sòng cí draw on this work. The window 1505–1540 reflects Chén’s adult literary period; the date “1502” given in the catalog meta is his jìnshì year (a Hóngzhì year, not a Sìkù-attested composition year). The Sìkù editors’ published criticism of two of Chén’s textual emendations (the Wéi Zhuāng suì míngqín line and the Yáng Mèngzài sùsù yángyáng line) is a model of Sìkù-editorial discipline: Hóngzhì-era literary judgment is not allowed to gǎizhèng Sòng masters.
Translations and research
- Tāng Guī-zhāng 唐圭璋, Quán Sòng cí 全宋詞 — uses Zhū-shān-táng cí-huà as a textual source.
- Wáng Wěi-yī 王偉勇, Qīng-dài cí-xué pī-píng shǐ.
- Stuart Sargent, “Tz’u,” in Mair, ed., Columbia History of Chinese Literature — places Zhū-shān-táng cí-huà in Míng cí-huà history.
Other points of interest
The Wáng Zhāoyí Mǎnjiānghóng — the late-Sòng court lady’s poignant lament composed for her sub-palace lady at the moment of the dynastic collapse — became, through this work’s preservation, one of the most-anthologized single pieces of the SòngYuán women’s cí tradition. Chén Tíng’s role as transmitter is one of the major contributions of the Míng cíhuà tradition to Sòng recovery.