Li Yu Collection -- Basic Collection of Chinese Family Bookshelves

Author: Wang Xiaofeng
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Publishing Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Li Yu (937–978), originally named Congjia, styled Zhongguang, and styled Zhongyin, was the sixth son of the second ruler of Southern Tang. He was a native of Xuzhou. In the late years of the establishment of the Song Dynasty (961), he ascended the throne in Jinling, ruling for fifteen years and later known as Li Houzhu. When he ascended the throne, Southern Tang had already acknowledged the legitimacy of the Song Dynasty and was living in temporary peace in the southern part of Jiangnan. In the seventh year of Kaibao (974), Emperor Taizu of Song repeatedly sent messengers to persuade him to come north, but he refused. In October of the same year, the Song army launched a southward attack on Jinling. The city fell in November of the following year, and the emperor surrendered in bare arms, being captured to Bianjing and enfeoffed as Weiming Hou. After Emperor Taizong ascended the throne, he was further enfeoffed as the Duke of Longxi. On the Qixi Festival (the seventh day of the seventh month) in the third year of Taipingguo (978), which was his fortieth birthday, Emperor Taizong, resenting his line "The former country cannot bear to recall under the moonlight," ordered his attendants to poison him with qianji medicine at the banquet. He was posthumously enfeoffed as the King of Wu and buried on Mount Mangshan in Luoyang.
In the early period, the style of Li Yu's poetry was elegant and sentimental, still influenced by the "Huajian" school. After the fall of his country, during his life of soft imprisonment where "he only wiped his face with tears from dawn till dusk," he composed a series of heart-wrenching and blood-stained masterpieces, making the ruler of a fallen state become the "Southern King" of the poetic world (as described by Shen Xiong in "Modern and Ancient Ci Poetry"). This is precisely "When the country suffers, the poet benefits; only through hardship does one's words attain true artistry." These later poems are desolate and heroic, with profound and far-reaching imagery, laying the groundwork for the "heroic" school of Su Shi and Xin Qiji in the history of ci poetry. As Wang Guowei noted in "Commentaries on Ci Poetry," "It was not until Li Houzhu that the scope of ci poetry broadened, and its sentiments deepened." As for the clarity of his language and the harmony of his rhymes, they were unparalleled.
Li Yu originally had a collected works, but it is now lost. The existing 44 poems include a few from the early period that may have been written by others, leaving only 38 confirmed as his. Among the most famous are over 20 that have already been entered by Xiao Fo and others. I have done a proofreading and supplemented them, arranging them generally in chronological order of composition. Li Yu had a 30-volume collected works, but most of it is now lost. During the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty, Dong Gao and others compiled the "Complete Works of Tang and Song," which included 7 essays by Li Yu. This book follows the same annotations. At the end of the book, there are several appendices, mainly biographies of Li Yu from historical records, comments on his poems by predecessors, and the classic ci poems of his father, Li Jing, as well as the author's own "Chronicle of Li Yu," "On Li Yu's Ci Poetry," and "On Li Yu's Poetry," to help readers better understand Li Yu the person and his works. "Quotations" in the main text are highlighted for easy reference.