Wáng Xī 王晳
Northern-Sòng Chūnqiū and Yìjīng scholar; native of Tàiyuán 太原 (modern Shānxī). Active in the Tiānxǐ 天禧 (1017–1021) and Zhìhé 至和 (1054–1056) eras under Sòng Zhēnzōng and Sòng Rénzōng. The graphic 晳 in the catalog meta is a variant of 皙; both forms are attested. Lifedates not preserved.
The Sìkù tíyào (under KR1e0019) corrects Chén Zhènsūn’s Shū lù jiětí attribution of him as a Tàicháng bóshì 太常博士: Gōng Dǐngchén’s 龔鼎臣 Dōngyuán lù 東原錄 records that in the Tiānxǐ era he was already a Hànlín xuéshì 學士 conferring with Yàn Shū 晏殊 on Cáo Lìyòng and Dīng Wèi’s continued tenure — a more senior post.
CBDB id 38388 records 王皙 as fl. 1078 — likely a different person, since Wáng Xī of the Chūnqiū huáng gāng lùn was a senior Hànlín scholar in the Tiānxǐ era of 1017–1021, not 1078. The CBDB record may have conflated two separate figures.
Three Chūnqiū works are recorded in Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi:
- Chūnqiū tōng yì 春秋通義 in 12 juan (lost).
- Chūnqiū yì yì 春秋異義 in 12 juan (lost).
- Chūnqiū huáng gāng lùn 春秋皇綱論 in 5 juan (KR1e0019, surviving).
Also wrote on the Yìjīng — a Yì shuō 易說 listed in the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì. None of his other writings is firmly extant.
The Huáng gāng lùn is methodologically distinctive among Northern-Sòng Chūnqiū commentaries for its balance: against Sūn Fù 孫復’s rigorist yǒu biǎn wú bāo 有貶無褒 doctrine, Wáng holds that the Chūnqiū must contain praise as well as blame; against the DànZhàoLù tendency to discard the three commentaries, Wáng argues for selective use of all three. The Sìkù tíyào describes this as “not losing the ancient meaning” — among the highest praise the editors give to a Sòng Chūnqiū work.