Collected Annotations on the couplets of Zeng Guofan

Author: Hu Ying
Author Country: China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The compilers are colleagues from the Zeng Guofan Former Residence Management Office, who have an advantage. In closely monitoring the historical figure of Zeng Guofan, they came into contact with unpublished Zeng family poems, couplets, and other materials. These accumulations naturally gave rise to this book. Zeng Guofan was renowned for his calligraphy, which also reached a high level of proficiency. Some couplets are accompanied by his handwriting, allowing readers to appreciate his style. This is a rare illustrated book that is hard to come by.
Zeng Guofan (1811–1872), styled Bohan and styled Desheng, was from Heye Town, Shuangfeng County, Hunan Province (originally Hetang, the 24th division of Xiangxiang). He was a jinshi under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing Dynasty and served as the chief examiner for the provincial examinations in Sichuan and Jiangxi, as well as the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites. He rose to the position of Viceroy of Liangjiang and Viceroy of Zhili, and was enfeoffed as a First-Class Marquis. He was the founder of the Xiangxiang branch of the Late Qing Tongcheng School, advocating for Song poetry and Tongcheng-style classical prose. In terms of scholarship, he emphasized that the three aspects of principle, textual research, and literary expression were all indispensable. His classical prose was highly regarded and was praised by Liang Qichao as the "Great Master of the Tongcheng School." Zeng Guofan also enjoyed writing couplets, which often appeared in his diaries and family letters. Each couplet he composed was widely circulated at the time, and many were compiled by others, with varying levels of detail.
The Complete Works of Zeng Guofan: Poems and Prose published by Yuefu Press is the most comprehensive collection of his couplets, but there are still lost couplets, and due to the vast volume, it was not possible to provide annotations for them. In light of this, this book extensively compiles and provides brief annotations, supplemented by handwriting, to help readers understand the original text and its context. Due to the passage of time, it is difficult to collect all the handwriting, so the handwriting recorded in his diaries is appended to the couplets for appreciation. The style and structure of writing diaries are very different from those of writing couplets. For those deeply studying the art of calligraphy in couplets, this is indeed a regret. It awaits our continuous discovery of Zeng Guofan's paired handwriting to revise this book. However, for appreciating Zeng Guofan's handwriting, we have provided the best version available to readers at present.