White Juyi Poetry Collection Annotations - (Complete 6 Volumes)

Author: Xie Sihui
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The great Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi left behind over 2,800 extant poems. He personally compiled his collected works during his lifetime (originally titled "Bai Shi Changqing Ji," later renamed "Bai Shi Wenji"), which were successively published in fifty-volume, sixty-volume, sixty-seven-volume, seventy-volume, and the final seventy-five-volume editions. He also copied five sets, with three sent to temples and two passed on to his family. Among Tang Dynasty poets, Bai Juyi stands out for the sheer number of his poems and the completeness of their preservation. This is due to his great appreciation for his own creations, as he personally edited and organized them (most other Tang Dynasty poets' works were collected and recompiled by later Song Dynasty scholars, and it is largely unknown whether they ever compiled their own collections or what their original forms were). Of course, more importantly, his poems were widely cherished and beloved by readers both in his time and in later generations.
Book Introduction: This book is a newly compiled edition of Bai Juyi's collected poems, holding significant academic value. It has two key features:
1. Comprehensive
(1) This edition is a collated and annotated collection of all extant poems by Bai Juyi, including all works from the "Bai Shi Wenji" as well as lost poems outside the collection.
(2) The edition is based on the 71-volume Song Dynasty edition of the "Bai Shi Wenji," with reference to nearly 20 rare and excellent domestic manuscripts (such as Dunhuang manuscripts, incomplete Song Dynasty copies, Ma Yuantiao's edition, Zeng Daju's edition, etc.) and 16 rare printed and handwritten manuscripts from Japan (such as the Kozuke Library edition, Daito-ji Temple edition, Shinfuku-ji Temple edition, and Fushimi Emperor's copied edition). It also compares with related general collections like the "Caitiao Ji" and the "Wenyuan Yinghua," making it the edition with the most extensive and authoritative textual collation to date.
2. Innovative
(1) The collation and annotations of this book draw on all representative domestic editions and annotations published previously, as well as all representative research findings from Japan up to 2003, many of which are newly discovered in recent years.
(2) This edition compiles over a decade of research by the collators and annotators on Bai Juyi and his literary works, with many contents being newly discovered and leading the field of research both domestically and internationally. It provides invaluable assistance for studying and understanding Bai Juyi's poetry and related literary and linguistic phenomena.