Dàtáng Xīnyǔ 大唐新語
New Anecdotes of the Tang by 劉肅
About the work
A 13-juàn thematically organized bǐjì 筆記 covering the Tang dynasty from its founding through the mid-9th century, compiled by 劉肅 Liú Sù and dated by its preface to Yuánhé 元和 2 (807 CE). The work is organized into 30 categorical sections (piān 篇), each covering a distinct theme — including loyal remonstrance (規諫), virtuous women, upright officials, wit and eloquence (文章), and supernatural phenomena — making it one of the more systematically structured Tang miscellanies. The preface explicitly situates the text within the Han-Tang historiographic tradition of condensed anecdotal history (xiǎozhī 小紀 style), invoking predecessors such as Yúqīng 虞卿 and Lù Jiǎ 陸賈.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
劉肅 Liú Sù (fl. 807 CE; CBDB id 92647) was a Tang official whose preface, dated Yuánhé 元和 2 (807 CE), is the primary biographical datum. The preface traces a historiographic lineage from the Shàngshū 尚書 and Chūnqiū 春秋 through Sima Qian 司馬遷 and Ban Gu 班固 to his own era, and explains that his aim is to record “the remarkable and the instructive” (yìjiǎn zhī shì 異鑒之事) of the Tang in a compact format accessible to a wide readership.
Author disambiguation: The Tang-dynasty 劉肅 (CBDB 92647, fl. 807) is distinct from the Song-dynasty 劉肅 (CBDB 13241, 1122–1183). He is also distinct from 劉餗 Liú Sù 劉餗 (with the character 餗, not 肅) — the son of Liu Zhiji 劉知幾, who completed the outer chapters of the Shǐtōng 史通 (a different 劉餗, author of the Suí-Táng jiāhuà KR4k0012).
The 30 thematic sections of the Dàtáng xīnyǔ cover the full span of Tang history, from the founding (617 CE) through the Dazhong period (847–859 CE). Among its most frequently cited anecdotes: portraits of major figures like the Empress Wu’s favorites, Xuanzong’s court, stories of talented women, Buddhist and Daoist encounters, and passages on poetry criticism and literary life. The work was cited by later leishu compilers and is preserved in a Zhōnghuá critical edition.
Translations and research
- 許德楠、李鼎霞 eds. 大唐新語 (中華書局, 1984). Standard punctuated critical edition.
- Wang Mengou 王夢鷗 ed., 大唐新語 (台北: 世界書局). Earlier edition.
- Nienhauser, William H. Jr. (ed.), The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, vol. 1. Indiana UP, 1986 — relevant entries on Tang bǐjì genre.
Links
- Wikidata: no dedicated entry located