Wang Anshi and Song Poetic Culture

Abstract

Wang Anshi and Song Poetic Culture is the second of Yang Xiaoshan's monographs to be published by Harvard University Asia Center. His previous book focuses on the poetic representation of objects and gardens in Song literati culture.1 This book continues his exploration of medieval Chinese literati culture and Wang Anshi's 王安石 (1021–1086) role in that culture in particular. Wang was a well-known statesman and poet who has been the subject of much scholarship in China and the West, so it is not easy to make a breakthrough in this well-studied area. However, Yang has demonstrated his superb understanding of Wang Anshi and poetic culture in the Song dynasty through a monograph that substantially advances the studies of Wang. This book centers on several important aspects of Wang's life, his political pursuits, and literary writings. I will summarize and analyze Yang's main arguments and highlight his original contributions chapter by chapter below.In the introduction, Yang defines his key term, poetic culture, and explains the three major background issues: “the relationship between Song and Tang poetry,” “the entanglement of poetry with partisan politics in the Song,” and “literati engagement with Buddhism in the Song” (1–5). Chapter 1 examines Wang Anshi's “Song of Brilliant Lady: Two Pieces” 明妃曲二首 (Ming Feiqu ershou) and their reception.2 It first traces the provenance and development of the Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 (ca. 52–19 BCE) lore, which was mainly preserved in the Hanshu 漢書 (History of the Han Dynasty), Qincao 琴操 (Zither Tunes), Hou Hanshu 後漢書 (History of the Later Han Dynasty), and Xijing zaji 西京雜記 (Miscellaneous Notes of the Western Capital). This chapter then places Wang's two poems in the cultural context of their reception. These poems were not subject to much controversy when first written. They became controversial mainly because of Song politics, in which context Wang's reversal of the conventional view of Zhaojun and his moral judgment became suspect. This moralizing criticism, made by Wang Hui 王回 (1023–1065), Fan Chong 范沖 (1067–1141), Zhu Bian 朱弁 (1085–1144), and Luo Dajing 羅大經 (fl. 1226), centered on the two lines, “Han's favor is shallow and the barbarian's deep; / The joy of life is to know each other's heart” 漢恩自淺胡自深，人生樂在相知心, which deal with the contrast between the Han and Xiongnu in treating Zhaojun (16). Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) considered these lines as evidence of a bias toward the innovation of the Jiangxi style, while Xu Du 徐度 (fl. 1135), Li Bi 李壁 (1159–1222), and Zhao Yi 趙翼 (1727–1814) regarded Wang's pursuit of novelty as justification for this criticism. By way of contrast with these critical voices, some literati, such as Liu Chenweng 劉辰翁 (1232–1297), Zhao Wen 趙文 (1239–1315), and Cai Shangxiang 蔡上翔 (fl. 1761), defended Wang, but most of their interpretations were difficult to justify. These poems did, however, attract the attention of Wang's contemporaries, such as Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002–1060), Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072), Zeng Gong 曾鞏 (1019–1083), and Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–1086), who composed matching poems.The different responses to Wang's poems on Zhaojun reveal later readers' understanding of and tolerance for the poetic innovation of unorthodox readings of cultural icons, as well as their political and moral orientations, and their literary tastes. The novelty of the reversal of judgment on Zhaojun is appealing, but this anti-traditional and anti-mainstream posture also tends to trap these poems in the center of controversy. Wang's contemporaries did not challenge his poems on Zhaojun, but these poems were criticized in the ensuing factional battles. Wang, as an important politician and man of letters with a maverick personality and iconoclastic writing style, became an easy target for criticism by later generations.While chapter 1 focuses on the reception of two poems that Wang composed, chapter 2 explores the controversies surrounding Wang's anthology, Tang baijia shixuan 唐百家詩選 (Select Poems of a Hundred Tang Masters). Although Wang claimed that he spent an extensive amount of time compiling this anthology, Chao Yuezhi 晁說之 (1059–1129) cast doubt on his efforts by pointing out the many textual errors included in the anthology. But evidence suggests, conversely, that Wang compiled this anthology with care and corrected some errors. It took Wang about a year to complete the compilation. Song Minqiu 宋敏求 (1019–1079) provided Wang with his own collection from which Wang selected poems. However, Wang's exclusion of several important Tang poets has given rise to three theories about his compilation choices. The intentionality theory, represented by Yang Pan 楊蟠 (fl. 1046) and Chen Zhengmin 陳正敏 (fl. 1105), held that as the compiler and editor, Wang was deliberate in selecting poems that met his criteria and personal preferences. In contrast, the circumstance theory, represented by Huang Bosi 黃伯思 (1079–1118) and Zhu Bian, argued that Wang's choices were limited by the poetry he could access.While scholars adhering to the third theory have assumed that earlier poetry anthologies were available to Northern Song (960–1127) literati, according to Yang Xiaoshan's research, these Tang poems were not so easily accessible. Although literati of means had access to the works of these poets, others did not. Yang cites the circulation of Du Fu's poetry in the Northern Song as an example to demonstrate that the anthologies of the time often did not select Du's poetry or selected relatively few poems by Du. In addition, Yang also refutes the idea that Song Minqiu's family book collection was as limited as Wang's selection might suggest. After a meticulous examination, Yang concludes that Song was one of the most comprehensive collectors of his time and that Song himself had edited many other collections of Tang writing. Yang believes that Song probably provided Wang with only a portion of his collection of books, and Wang did not attempt to compile a poetry anthology that would comprehensively reflect Tang poetic styles and representative writers. As for the quality of the compilation, it was later readers' subjective personal tastes that made Wang's selections controversial.Wang's selection has been controversial because of his claims to capture the essence of Tang poetry: “For anyone who wants to know about Tang poetry, it is enough to read this” 欲知唐詩者，觀此足矣 (63). However, Wang did not include several important Tang poets, most notably Li Bai 李白 (701–762), Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770), and Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824). To explain this, Yang compares Wang's anthology to other major Tang and early Song anthologies, such as Heyue yingling ji 河岳英靈集 (Collection of Finest Spirits of River and Mountains), Zhongxing jianqi ji 中興間氣集 (Collection of Poet-Officials of the Restoration Period), and Qiezhong ji 篋中集 (Collection from the Book-Bin), and presents a table that allows readers to clearly compare and contrast these anthologies with Wang's. Based on this comparison, Yang argues that Tang baijia shixuan was in the tradition of anthology compilation during Tang and early Song periods: major Tang writers who were honored by later generations were not selected or were sparsely represented. Therefore, Yang believes that Wang's anthology is “rather conservative and considerably derivative” (102). The anthologies, with their neglect of High Tang poets in favor of late Tang poets, did not play an important role in canon formation. Instead, other cultural activities—such as editing Tang writers' individual collections, writing commentary on poetry, notes, personal accounts of writers, and biographies of writers in the official histories—played a larger role in the formation of the canon.The first two chapters focus on the controversies around Wang's writing and editing works. Chapter 3 moves away from controversies to discuss Wang's late style, the study of which has been closely linked with the canonization of Du Fu's poetry.3 There has been a renaissance of Du Fu studies in the Anglophone world: Stephen Owen's complete translation of his poetry, Hao Ji's monograph on his reception, Tian Xiaofei's edited volume of essays, and Lucas Bender's monograph on Du's understanding of the tradition, just to name a few recent studies on the poet.4 Yang Xiaoshan focuses on the important role that Wang Anshi played in Du's reception, presenting Du as both a model poet and a moral model. Yang first traced the periodization practices of Du's poems before Wang's time. Wang Zhu's 王洙 (997–1057) chronology of Du's poems reads his corpus through the lens of his life. This chronology is useful for understanding the historical and cultural context of Du's works, on the one hand, and the evolution of Du's literary styles, on the other. Lü Dafang 吕大防 (1027–1097) divided Du's poetry into three phases: early, prime, and late, and believed that his life experiences influenced the changes and development of Du's literary styles. Huang Tingjian 黃庭堅 (1045–1105) divided Du's literary style into early and late styles, setting the boundary at Du's experience in Kuizhou 夔州. Chen Shan 陳善 (fl. 1160) and Fang Hui 方回 (1227–1307) both agreed that Du's poetry became better after he left Kuizhou. Du Fu himself commented on his late style, comparing himself to Yu Xin 庾信 (513–581), whose style he felt changed with age.With respect to Wang Anshi's poetry, Ye Mengde 葉夢得 (1077–1148) divided Wang's literary writing into three periods, considering the early period inferior to the late, which Ye felt demonstrated greater skill in grasping and using language, poetic rhythm, and diction. Ye was not alone in praising Wang's late poetry. Southern Song literati, such as Yang Wanli 楊萬里 (1127–1206) and Yan Yu 嚴羽 (1191–1241), also considered Wang's quatrains as an important and individual literary contribution. Cross-cultural reflections on late style become part of the concluding remarks of this chapter, which critically analyzes four aspects of late style as a theoretical concept: “its historicity, the range of its applicability, the defining qualities of late style, and the genesis and formation of late style” (184). The concept of a “late style” has a longer history in Chinese culture than in the West, where it emerged only with the advent of modernism. The Western concept of late style is often associated with genius and therefore limited in application. In China, Lü Dafang connected late style to the experience a writer accumulates as they age and even the physiological experience of old age. Ye Mengde focused on the literary quality of and broad knowledge demonstrated in Wang's later works. Huang Tingjian's two-phase theory makes a clear distinction between early and late styles using significant events in Wang's life as a boundary marker. The experience of deportation gave rise to a new writing style.Chapter 4 investigates Wang Anshi's imitations of Hanshan 寒山. Yang divides Hanshan's poetry into two categories: lyrical-descriptive and satirical-didactic. Western scholars generally prefer the first category, while Chinese scholars largely prefer the second. There are also two conventional ways to pay tribute to Hanshan's poetry: one is quotation, represented by Guanxiu 貫休 (832–912) and Qiji 齊己 (864–ca. 943), and the other is imitation, represented by Qingliang Taiqin 清涼泰欽 (ca. 909–974). Wang Anshi adopted colloquial language to shift the focus of his imitation works from lyrical-descriptive to satirical-didactic. Wang's imitations influenced how later literati accepted Hanshan's poetry, as evidenced by the imitations of Xuedou Chongxian 雪竇重顯 (980–1052) and Cao Xun 曹勳 (ca. 1098–1174). Among those influenced by Wang's imitations, Cishou Huaishen 慈受懷深 (1077–1132) stands out: he composed 150 imitation poems of Hanshan, featuring exhortations against killing animals and eating meat. In his later years, Wang often visited Bell Mountain 鐘山. He was interested in Buddhism and composed poems on the theme of religion, developing a unique poetic style. As Yang puts it, these late poems “lie somewhere between the explicitly colloquial doctrinal poems in imitation of Hanshan and the pristine landscape poems that critics have associated with Wang's late style” (224).Chapter 5 focuses on the story and political context of the poem “Hard to Trust You” (Jun nan tuo 君難託). This poem has often been regarded as an expression of Wang's dissatisfaction with Emperor Shenzong of Song 宋神宗 (r. 1067–1085). This chapter explores how this view was formed. It begins with a discussion of the question of authorship with respect to this poem, and the relationship of that question to three views of how the poem functions as political allegory. Lu Zai 陸宰 (1088–1148) and Li Bi had suggested that Wang Anguo 王安國 (1028–1074) might be the author of this poem. However, Xiong He 熊禾 (1247–1312) and Liu Xun 劉壎 (1240–1319) suggested that the poem was written by Wang Anshi after he retired to Bell Mountain and therefore has political implications. Here, Yang Xiaoshan draws a distinction between the emperor's favor to his ministers and the employment of a minister's talents. This distinction is also made by Wang himself in his own diary, where he expresses his dissatisfaction with Shenzong. The second context for Wang's poem is the ancient trope of the abandonment of women, which can be traced back to the Shijing 詩經 (Classic of Poetry) and Chuci 楚辭 (Lyrics of Chu). In both of these texts, the relationship between a woman and man is associated with that between a ruler and minister. In the Northern Song, abandoned women became identified with wronged ministers. The third view of the political allegory of the poem deals with the relationship between poetry interpretation and political struggle, which turned this poem into a weapon to be used against its author. The reading of this poem as political allegory is therefore connected to a larger turn toward a political hermeneutics: “The case of ‘Hard to Trust You’ sheds light on the hitherto little-noticed allegation that many of Wang's late poems contain complaints against the emperor or slanders of the court. The case also provides a retrospective window into a larger hermeneutic landscape in which traditional exegetical practices became intertwined with or even subservient to the demands of contemporary partisan politics” (272).The coda places Wang's poems in the context of Chinese literary history, delineating the critical reception of Wang's poetry in later periods. The epilogue ties up the entire book by discussing how the Song literati pursued novelty in order to establish their own position and escape the anxieties of influence from their Tang predecessors. Their innovations were controversial, and Wang Anshi, as a politician, poet, and intellectual, was an embodiment of these controversial innovations.To sum up, Yang Xiaoshan has done an excellent job of discussing Wang Anshi's place in Chinese literati culture and convincingly and critically analyzing many materials. Yang discovers, proposes, and solves the problems of an impressive amount of firsthand materials through meticulous close reading of many primary sources, including several large compendia. Yang also consults secondary scholarship in Chinese, English, and Japanese to rigorously contextualize his own ideas. Many of the materials, including the poems, were translated into English for the first time by Yang. This book is highly recommended for both undergraduate and graduate courses on premodern Chinese literature, as well as topic courses on Chinese poetry or Chinese literati culture. Overall, Yang's book is balanced in its approach to the issues, well structured, and well organized.This review article is part of my Multiple-Year Research Grant project (MYRG2020-00018-FAH) from the University of Macau and the Chinese National Program in Humanities and Social Science project (19BH138). I thank Steven Roddy, the book review editor, for providing me with this opportunity.