"Post Mountain Poetry Notes Supplement Annotations (Volume 1 and 2)"

Author: (Song) Chen Shidao, compiled by Ren Jia, supplemented by Chang Guangsheng
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-11-01
Features: In 1931, Mr. Mao Guangsheng (1873-1959) encountered the Post-Shan Collection published by Zhao Junlie of Yunjian during the Yongzheng era in Guangzhou. The poetry section of Zhao's edition was arranged by poetic form, in the order of five-verse ancient poems, seven-verse ancient poems, five-verse regulated poems, seven-verse regulated poems, five-verse quatrains, and seven-verse quatrains, totaling eight volumes with 679 poems. Mr. Mao wrote the following on the cover: "No Ren Jia annotated edition in my travel box. I have read it through briefly and still plan to check the collections of Song scholars and local gazettes to supplement Ren Jia's annotations. With the remaining years of my life, I may only end up daydreaming, but once the book is completed, it will be an immortal achievement. Written on the first day of August in the Qianjin year, Ren Jia." At that time, Mr. Mao not only did not have Ren Jia's annotated edition but also knew of no other versions of Chen Shidao's poems. He soon found the Chen Tang edition and the Ma Tun edition, and discovered a Record of on Chen Shidao's poems in Jiang Guangxu's Record of . Therefore, he wrote the following notes on the covers of the second and third volumes of Zhao's edition: "During the Yongzheng era, there was a Chen Tang edition in Jiashan, which is the Wei Yan edition, without annotations. What Wei Yan did not include, he classified as lost poems, which Ma Tun's edition has fully covered. The Record of in Bie Xiaozhi contains a Post-Shan Collection annotated by He Yimen (Yi Men). I have meticulously transcribed these annotations in the margins. March 24th, Mu Yuan. The date recorded here is likely March 1932. The first note mentions Ma Tun's edition, which is the same as the (Ming edition) mentioned in the second note. The Record of in Bie Xiaozhi contains He Jue's (Yi Men) annotations. According to records, between 1932 and 1934, Mr. Mao worked on supplementing the for the Post-Shan Poems. In his self-drafted chronicle, under the Qianjin year, there is a section: 'Visited Guangdong, toured Luofu in April, returned to Nanjing in May, and returned to Gaogou in June.' The reprinted Zhao edition of the Post-Shan Collection by Tao's Ai in Guangzhou was obtained during this time in Guangzhou. After returning to Gaogou, he had access to a large collection of books for reference. Under the Qianjin year in the chronicle draft, there is a sentence: 'Submitted the for the Post-Shan Poems to Baikuo for publication in March 1934.' It shows that the book was fully completed two years later. During those two years, Mr. Mao was between 60 and 61 years old. Commercial Press published this book in 1936. After its publication, Mr. Mao spent his later academic life in Shanghai for twenty years. Initially, he focused on the study of Song Ci, writing works such as Four Sounds Digression, Jiaoqi Ci Lun, Song Qu Chanzuju, Qingbei Exam, Donglin Xizhao Lu, and Newly Compiled Yunyao Collection Lyrics, and compiling annotations for many Song Ci poems. In the following decade, he studied works such as Guanzi, Wenzi , Jingshi Yi, Xin Shu, Xinyu, and Chunqiu Fanru. He wrote Comprehensive Draft of Guanzi Collection, Corrections and Annotations of Guanzi, Annotations of Liezi, Annotations of Chunqiu Fanru, and Three Interpretations of Jingshi Yi in the Zhouyi, among others. He also compiled short essays on classics and Confucian classics into four volumes of Miscellaneous Works of San Xiaowutang, with over a million words. However, during these twenty years, he made little progress on the Supplementary for the Post-Shan Poems. In 1957, at the age of 85, Mr. Mao returned to Beijing with great excitement. In his poems, he wrote, "It is the red May of the new land, and red flags are raised on Tiananmen," expressing his joy at the prosperity of the new China. At that time, colleagues from the publishing house came to contact him, planning to reprint the Supplementary for the Post-Shan Poems, and a manuscript agreement was signed. After returning to Shanghai, he devoted himself to organizing the work for a short period and was able to review the original manuscript of the Post-Shan Collection from Shu Song in large characters provided by Mr. Pan Boshan for. However, due to his advanced age, he showed the state of "late years, the heart is set but the strength is exhausted." From the end of 1957 to August 1959, he spent most of his time in the East China Hospital. Yet, as academic research was his lifelong pursuit, his meticulous and responsible attitude was evident in every scrap of paper he left behind. In June and July 1959, I was in Shangcheng, Henan, and Mr. Mao still wrote to me once, showing his consistent emphasis on the book. After Mr. Mao's death in Shanghai on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in August 1959, I was unable to visit Beijing to organize his manuscripts. This January, I finally had the opportunity to take the original manuscript of the Post-Shan Poems to Beijing. By late April of this year (1961), I finally had time to begin organizing it. Chen Shidao (1052-1111) was a key figure in the Jiangxi Poetry School. In Lu Ben's Chart of the Jiangxi Poetry School, his name was ranked only below Huang Tingjian as the second. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Fang Hui, a Jiangxi school scholar, wrote Yingkui Lüsi, proposing the theory of "one ancestor and three sects," with Du Fu as the ancestor and Huang Tingjian, Chen Shidao, and later Chen Yuyi as the three sects. Fang Hui also said, "Du Fu's poems are the crown of Tang poetry, and Huang and Chen's poems are the crown of Song poetry," showing the high regard they held. However, later critics of the Jiangxi school attacked Chen Shidao fiercely, such as Feng Ban of the Xikun school in the early Qing dynasty, who criticized his poems as stiff, obscure, obscure, and vulgar. We should study these aspects comprehensively. Chen Shidao's life was marked by fluctuations in lower-level official positions, serving as a state professor in Xuzhou, Yingzhou, and Dingzhou. At the age of 49, in the year of his death, he was transferred from Dingzhou to the Secretariat as a Zhengzi. His disciple Wei Yan detailed his life and works in Record of the Collection of Chen of Pengcheng. The further cites Biography of Chen Shidao in the Song Shi, Biography of Zeng Gong, Dongpo Collection, Shanshui Collection, Jinggong Collection, Chicken Rib Chronicle, Notes of the Old Learning Studio, Notes of Nenggai, and other collections, providing extensive materials on Chen Shidao's life. The highlights of Chen Shidao's life can be seen in a few words by the Southern Song scholar Zhu Xi. In Record of Conversations with Zhu Xi, it is recorded that after reading Biography of Chen Wuyi in Dongdu Shilu, Zhu Xi said, "It only describes the shadow, not the essence of Biography of Chen Wuyi. The good points of the biography are not included. It is a pity that I did not see Zhang Zidun, did not see Zhao Tingzhi's cotton coat, and when Qin Qizhi heard of his poverty, he wanted to give him silver to help. But when he listened to his discussions, he dared not give the silver." Zhang Dun and Zhao Tingzhi were powerful officials of the court. The has detailed explanations of their affairs. These passages show Chen's integrity and unyielding spirit. Apart from his coldness toward the nobility, he was extremely warm toward those he respected. When serving as a state professor in Xuzhou, Su Shi was appointed as the governor of Hangzhou. Chen Shidao, without permission from the state officials, went to Nanjing to bid farewell to Su Shi, losing his position as a state professor but leaving behind poems that are rare and once in a generation. Chen Shidao's poetry and collected works were compiled by Wei Yan based on Chen's manuscript drafts of , , and . In the early Southern Song dynasty, Ren Yuan of Xinjin, Sichuan, annotated the poetry collections of Huang Tingjian and Chen Shidao, so Chen's poetry collections are divided into annotated and unannotated versions. The General Catalogue of the Four Treasuries comments on Ren Yuan's annotations: "Ren Yuan lived between the Northern and Southern Song dynasties, not far from the Youyou era, and often preserved fragments of lost texts. Even those he interacted with during his time could trace their origins, so his arrangement of dates and research into facts often captured the essence of the authors. In fact, Ren's annotations mainly explain the allusions and origins of the poems, with supplementary notes on Chen's social interactions and circumstances. The , on the other hand, primarily explains Chen's social interactions and the political and social context of the time, with only occasional references to allusions, as Ren's annotations are generally comprehensive. This is the difference between Ren's annotations and Mao's ." After Ren Yuan annotated Chen's poems, it took more than 800 years for Mao Guangsheng to write the supplementary . The advantage of the long gap was the availability of more materials. For example, in the twelfth volume, the poem "Eulogy for Empress Chen" contains the line "Decision of the sky, same strength," which Ren Yuan did not annotate. Mao's cites Li Tao's Comprehensive Continuation of the Zizhi Tongjian, which explains the dispute between Zhang Dun and Emperor Shenzong over the succession to the Song dynasty throne. Li Tao's work was beyond Ren Yuan's reach. The work is meticulous and serious. For example, in the second volume, the poem "Chasing the Call," cites eleven examples of Chen Shidao's use of colloquial language from Zhu Jiyu's Chicken Rib Chronicle, and the meticulously identifies the sources of all eleven examples. The value of the supplementary can be summarized as follows: (1) It supplements the shortcomings of Ren's annotations. The references are extensive, and the covers various aspects of the time, including politics, culture, and the literary scene. (2) It corrects some errors in historical books and notes. For example, the for the first volume's poem "Mocking Qin Guo" cites Ren's annotations and references from the Gaozhou Prefecture Gazetteer and the Shanshui Collection, proving the errors in the Song Shi and Dongdu Shilu. The for the first part of the "Lost Poems" volume's poem "Ascending Phoenix Mountain, Missing Su Shi" cites Su Shi's poem quoted in the postscript of Chen Shidao, proving that the poem included in the Sizhi volume in 1096 should be reorganized into the Hangzhou volume. (3) It pioneers a new research method. Throughout history, many scholars have supplemented and collected annotations for ancient poems, mostly limited to explaining insects and fish, annotating plants and trees, and meticulously tracing the origins of allusions. From Li Bi's annotations on Zheng Anshi's poems and Hu Zhi's on Chen Yuyi's poems in the Southern Song dynasty to Shen Qianhan's annotations on Fan Chengda's poems in the Qing dynasty, they all followed this pattern. However, this starts with the social background of the time, explaining a side of the social and political context of late Northern Song dynasty, using Chen Shidao's life as a framework, making it easier for later scholars to understand Chen's poems and providing valuable materials for literary and social history. Due to my level and time constraints, I can only provide a brief introduction to the . Its strengths and weaknesses still await further feedback from readers. The original manuscript is as follows: During the process of organizing the , I discovered an opening for the preface Mr. Mao wrote for the , but he did not continue. The Post-Shan Collection has both annotated and unannotated versions. The unannotated version has ten volumes, with poems numbered by five or seven characters and prose by thousands or hundreds. The Poetry Talks and Discussions are separate volumes. They were compiled by Chen Shidao's disciple Wei Yan in the fifth year of the Zhenghe era (1115) and were inscribed by Wang Yun of Yuancheng in the following year. In the late Song and early Yuan dynasty, Chen Renzi of Chaling, Sichuan, inspired by this, further explored the various versions of the Post-Shan Collection and the catalog of book collections from different periods. He first drafted the article The Transmission of the Post-Shan Collection. Then, he compiled all the prefaces and postfaces to the Post-Shan Collection from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. He also compiled a based on the versions of Chen Shidao's poems he could access. Regarding the itself, in addition to including the few supplementary Mr. Mao himself added, some insights from Chen Zhang and Zheng Xueyun were also included with annotations. Additionally, errors in the original printing by Commercial Press were corrected, and revisions were made to a few quoted passages in the . As for the overall style and content of the , it is not possible to make further refinements and changes. I believe there are still areas that can be improved, and these require the readers' corrections and further refinement. (a) The title of this poem is 《》 in the earliest Song Sichuan large-character edition, while all other editions use 《》.