Later Redefinitions

Other tz'u scholars in the nineteenth century followed Chang's and Chou's leads in different ways. The rich literature on and of the song lyric in the nineteenth century attests to the transforming influence of the Ch'ang-chou school, and I shall mention only two examples. The first is a general discussion introducing an unpublished anthology in eight fascicles, the Tz'u-kuei (dated 1863), compiled by Yang Hsi-min, who makes a number of points that suggest his decision to situate the song lyric unambiguously within the shih historical and critical tradition. First, he interprets the shih-yü epithet in such a way as to insist on the connection, rather than the differentiation, between the two forms: "Long-and-short verses are remnants of shih . This being so, shih then is the source and tz'u the tributary. If the source is not distant, how can the tributary be long?" And he goes on to stress the fact that tz'u poets like Wen T'ing-yün, Wei Chuang, Yen Shu, Yen Chi-tao, Ch'in Kuan, and Ho Chu could all write shih poetry as well; that Su Shih and Huang T'ing-chien were especially renowned for the latter; and that tz'u poets whose other writings are not worth reading are "like tributaries without the source." Second, he de-emphasizes the distinguishing feature of the song lyric, its musical performance, by arguing that "even though the ancient poems all were written to music, later poems without music are

[68] In "The Ch'ang-chou School of Tz'u Criticism," in Chinese Approaches to Literature from Confucius to Liang Ch'i-ch'ao , ed. Adele Austin Rickett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 151–88.

numerous and are not therefore prevented from being good poems. But a tone and rhythm that come naturally cannot be lost. With tz'u the situation is the same. If you can sing, you will certainly be good; but if you cannot sing, are you therefore not a tz'u poet?" He then observes that few people can understand the musical notation Chiang K'uei provided for his song lyrics.

Yang Hsi-min also argues that critical concepts apply with equal validity to the two genres. For example, he writes that "some people think that in tz'u one esteems having the meaning within and the words on the surface [i nei yen wai ], but those who understand this are few. They fail to realize that having meaning within words is true of all writing of subtlety, and not just the song lyric." The most compelling incorporation of the shih tradition can be seen in a statement that appears more than once in his discussion, a statement to the effect that "in studying tz'u one should begin with yüeh-fu of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties, and then take Wen [T'ing-yün], Wei [Chuang], the two Yens, Ch'in [Kuan], and Ho [Chu] as the canonical orthodox tradition [cheng tsung ]."^[69] Chao Tsun-yüeh notes that this is modeled on Kao Ping's discussion of T'ang poetry, but the precedent in fact goes back to Yen Yü, who was particularly concerned with the question of systematic study of past models.^[70]

As the admiring reference above to Su Shih and Huang T'ing-chien should suggest, Yang Hsi-min's tastes run precisely to the Northern Sung tz'u poets whose standing Chu I-tsun and his school had been anx-

[69] Chao Tsun-yüeh, "Tz'u-chi t'i-yao," pt. 2, Tz'u-hsüeh chi-k'an 1, no. 2 (August 1933): 83–84.

[70] Yen Yü's prescription, of course, appears in different forms and is considerably longer. One version recommends the following:

First, one must thoroughly recite the Ch'u-tz'u and sing them morning and night so as to make them his basis. When he recites the "Nineteen Old Poems," the "Yüeh-fu in Four Sections," the five-syllabic poetry of Li Ling and Su Wu and of the Han and the Wei, he must do them all thoroughly. Afterward, he will take up the collected poetry of Li [Po] and Tu [Fu] and read them [the poems] in dovetail fashion as people of today study the classics. Next, he will take up comprehensively the famous masters of the High T'ang. Having allowed all this to ferment in his bosom for a long time, he will be enlightened spontaneously [tzu-jan wu-ju ]. Although he might not attain the ultimate of study, still he will not go off the correct road.

From Ts'ang-lang shih-hua chiao-shih , ed. Kuo Shao-yü (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch'u-pan-she, 1962), p. 1. Trans. (with slight revisions) Richard John Lynn, "Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: Wang Shih-chen's Theory of Poetry and Its Antecedents," in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism , ed. W. T. de Bary, Studies in Oriental Culture, no. 10 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 220.

ious to diminish. Ironically enough, Yang employs the same verb hsi , "wash away," "eliminate," that Wang Sen had used in speaking of the Tz'u-tsung's accomplishment vis-à-vis the Ts'ao-t'ang shih-yü , to describe the contribution made by major Northern Sung poets: "Ou[-yang Hsiu], Su [Shih] and Huang [T'ing-chien] are unrestrained and unconventional, genial and liberal, heroic and strange. They eliminated at once the practice of writing about latticework and gauze; this is how the orthodox was transformed and became [a new] orthodoxy." He also takes Tsou Hsü-shih (Tsou Chih-mo, 1658 chin-shih ) to task for criticizing Northern Sung poets' failure to write long tz'u in great numbers. This reflects a poor understanding of literary history, Yang argues, for all forms of a genre are not always simultaneously to a poet's hand at any given moment in time. To say that Su and Huang could not write long tz'u makes little sense if Liu Yung was the first to develop the form. Like Chu and other early Ch'ing critics, Yang concludes, Tsou is too one-sided: "When shopping for food, he only knows how to buy what is inexpensive; he has never heard the subtleties of tz'u ."^[71]

An earlier passage of the text articulates in a different manner Yang's rejection of the narrow, doctrinaire exclusivity that he finds characteristic of critics at the beginning of the dynasty:

Now writing has its roots in inborn emotions and is assisted by learning; when both are present, then as soon as one sets the brush down to send forth words, the workings of heaven will start of themselves. Nothing has been determined with regard to long composition or short piece, nor between the "clear and empty" [ch'ing-k'ung ] and the "solid and substantial" [chih-shih ] styles. The Shih [-chi ] is not the same as the "[Li-]sao"; the "Sao" is not the same as the Chuang-tzu ; the Kung [-yang ] and Ku [-liang ] are not the same as the Tso [-chuan ] and the Kuo [-yü ]—how can one therefore settle on one explanation?^[72]

Although considerably more eclectic and flexible in his judgments, Yang Hsi-min has clearly been influenced by the views of Chang Hui-yen; he nonetheless feels that the latter's school has still not paid suf-

[71] In Chao Tsun-yüeh, "Tz'u-chi t'i-yao," pt. 2, p. 85. Tsou Chih-mo's position is also presented by Grace Fong in her Wu Wenying and the Art of Southern Song Ci Poetry , p. 164. One might, of course, take Yang to task in turn for assuming that genres have life histories of their own that evolve independently of human agency, but given the established discourse, it would have been difficult for him to think otherwise.

[72] Chao Tsun-yüeh, "Tz'u-chi t'i-yao," pt. 2, p. 84. Ch'ing-k'ung and chih-shih were terms first used by Chang Yen in his Tz'u-yüan to establish the superiority of Chiang K'uei as the exemplar of the former style. Along with the Ming dynasty Chang Yen's distinction between wan-yüeh and hao-fang , they stand at the center of the critical terminology developed to refer specifically to the song lyric.

ficient attention to a significant dimension of tz'u history. Thus, on the one hand he notes that in selecting songs for his anthology he has looked for those with pi-hsing , "comparison and evocative images," in other words, metaphorical imagery that would lend itself to the interpretive operations favored by the followers of Chang Hui-yen's method. He also credits Chang for having liberated scholars of tz'u from the fetters of Chu's Tz'u-tsung by "going against the current" to bring Wen T'ing-yün to prominence, thereby "opening up a new realm" in which tz'u incorporates pi-hsing . On the other hand, however, he then chooses to focus his critical attention on a group of poets different from that favored by the earlier critic: "But the path of [Ou-yang] Liu-i, [Su Tung-]p'o, and [Huang Shan-]ku has not yet been traversed by many wooden clogs. For an era to have brave heroes, it must not shrink from asking where the ford is."^[73] And there is no question that this relatively broad-minded attitude has indeed been evident throughout his entire discussion.^[74]

Finally, we can see a balance between the positions of Chu I-tsun and Chang Hui-yen explored quite literally in the writings of the late Ch'ing critic Ch'en T'ing-cho. Ch'en is best known as a proponent of the theories associated with the Ch'ang-chou school, which he discussed in his Pai-yü-chai tz'u-hua of 1892 and illustrated in his anthology Tz'u-tse . Less than twenty years earlier, however, in 1874, Ch'en had edited a collection entitled Yün-shao chi and explained the principles behind it, which at that time were wholeheartedly those of Chu I-tsun, in a work called the Tz'u-t'an ts'ung-hua . A recent reprinting of the Pai-yü-chai tz'u-hua provides extensive documentation on these two efforts, so I shall not discuss them in detail here. The two pairs of texts do, however, not only articulate quite clearly the general principles of both the Chu and the Chang schools, but also present us with positions that are somewhat more supple than those of either faction.

The Yün-shao chi , which exists only in draft form, includes 3,434 songs by over 1,100 poets from the T'ang through the Ch'ing dynasties. Interestingly enough, given Ch'en's repeated insistence in the Tz'u-t'an ts'ung-hua on the distinctiveness of tz'u , the anthology is modeled on Shen Te-ch'ien's (1673–1769) Ku-shih yüan in being organized chronologically by dynasty and, within each section, by the social status

[73] Ibid. The last allusion, of course, is to Lun-yü 18/6.

[74] As has been noted by others, the more supple and balanced rethinking of Chang Hui-yen's ideas had already been evident in the critical work of Chou Chi. See Chia-ying Yeh Chao, "The Ch'ang-chou School," pp. 176–83, and Grace Fong, Wu Wen-ying and the Art of Southern Song Ci Poetry , pp. 167–73.

of each author.^[75] (Women come at the end, preceding only a fascicle of "miscellaneous forms" [tsa-t'i ] that includes some lusty "mountain songs" [shan-ko ] that Ch'en evidently could not bear to leave out.) The preface to the collection borrows shamelessly from Chu I-tsun's introduction to his anthology,^[76] although it does admit that its model is the Tz'u-tsung . There is the same recounting of the evolution of tz'u , an argument similar to Wang Sen's against the notion of tz'u as the remnant of shih ("tz'u is that by which one remedies the deficiencies of shih ; it is not the remnant of shih "),^[77] and the declaration that he "considers ya-cheng to be the orthodox tradition."^[78] Song lyrics from the Southern Sung are represented in greatest number within the collection; Ch'en's Tz'u-tan ts'ung-hua in fact announces that he regards the Southern Sung as the "orthodox tradition,"^[79] and there are references throughout to the importance of prosodic rules and to his esteem for the wan-yüeh and marginalization of the hao-fang styles, all of which stems from Li Ch'ing-chao's critical dictum regarding the distinctiveness of tz'u and the theories of Chang Yen and Chu I-tsun. At the same time, however, Ch'en cannot resist confessing to a fondness for the songs of Wen T'ing-yün, whom Chu had not valorized but whose style Ch'en feels many critics of his time have failed to understand, and for the song lyrics of the Northern Sung. The Che school, of course, had given pride of place to the Southern Sung, but Ch'en writes that he personally prefers the loftiness and naturalness of the earlier tz'u , which are, admittedly, more "vulgar" and "impure" than those of the following era. If one thinks of the former as analogous to the "Airs" and the latter as the "Elegances," he argues, then there is room for both.^[80]

Less than two decades later Ch'en T'ing-cho declared that Chang Hui-yen's Tz'u-hsüan was ten times finer than Chu I-tsun's Tz'u-tsung .^[81]

[75] Tsu-pen chiao-chu , 2:855. This system had an earlier precedent within the tz'u anthological tradition, for the Chung-hsiang chi , a collection of song lyrics by women compiled by Ch'ien Yüeh in the last decades of the seventeenth century, arranged its over four hundred works by author in descending order of social status, from wives of high officials to singing girls. As noted by She Chih, "Li-tai tz'u-hsüan-chi," pt. 4, pp. 249–50. The same ordering principle can be found, of course, in certain anthologies of shih .

[76] This is graphically presented in a chart in the recent reprinting; see Tsu-pen chiao-chu , 2:894 n. 10.

[77] Ibid., p. 805.

[78] Ibid., p. 806.

[79] Ibid., p. 846.

[80] Ibid., p. 816.

[81] Ibid., 1:11 (Tz'u-hua ts'ung-pien , vol. 1/2a), and 2:533 (Tz'u-hua tsung-pien , vol. 5/11b). Ch'ü Hsing-kuo discusses the reasons behind Ch'en's change of views—key amongwhich may have been his fondness for the song lyrics of Wen T'ing-yün, whom Chang Hui-yen also esteemed—in the appendix to Pai-yü-chai tz'u-hua tsu-pen chiao-chu , pp. 896–97.

The influence of the Ch'ang-chou school is evident throughout this work in its insistence on treating tz'u and shih in the same critical terms. Both genres, for example, share a list of traits to be avoided:

No matter whether one is composing shih or composing tz'u , one cannot have the style of a rotten Confucian, nor the style of a common person, nor the style of a talented scholar. Though people realize that the rotten Confucian and the common styles are impermissible, they don't realize that the talented scholar's style is also impermissible. . . . As soon as people see the rotten Confucian and the common person's styles, they detest them; but when it comes to the talented scholar's style, there's no one who sees it who doesn't take pleasure in it. Thus, the defect therein is even more profound.^[82]

In addition to linking shih and tz'u here from a negative perspective, Ch'en T'ing-cho also insists on their relationship and comparability for other purposes as well. More than once in the Pai-yü-chai tz'u-hua , therefore, Ch'en remarks on the analogies between their stages of evolution: "If we compare tz'u to shih , the T'ang is like the Han and Wei; the Five Dynasties is like the Western and Eastern Chin and Six Dynasties; the Northern and Southern Sung are like the T'ang; the Yüan and Ming are like the Northern and Southern Sung; and Ch'ing tz'u are like Ch'ing shih ."^[83] As the two can be periodized, so can they be collected in similar manners. The Pai-yü-chai tz'u-hua includes the general preface to Ch'en's Tz'u-tse that describes the selection and organization of its 2,600 songs into four categories: "great elegances" (ta-ya ), "heroic songs" (fang-ko ), "calmed emotions" (hsien-ch'ing ), and "distinctive modes" (pieh-tiao ), with the first group defined as the orthodox and the other three as its subordinates.^[84] Not only are the titles of the groups drawn largely from specific texts in the shih tradition, but the arrangement and the discussion that frames it echo those found in Po Chü-i's famous letter to Yüan Chen concerning his collected poems.^[85]

Running throughout Ch'en's text is the assumption that "shih and tz'u have the same form and different functions"; this in fact, as he con-

[82] Tsu-pen chiao-chu , 2:561; Tz'u-hua ts'ung-pien , vol. 5/18a.

[83] Tsu-pen chiao-chu , 2:576; Tz'u-hua ts'ung-pien , vol. 5/19b.

[84] Tsu-pen chiao-chu , 2:538–39; Tz'u-hua ts'ung-pien , vol. 5/12b–13a.

[85] "Yü Yüan Chiu shu," in Po Chü-i hsüan-chi , ed. Wang Ju-pi (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1980), p. 359.

tinues in this passage, links them more closely than tz'u and ch'ü , which "have different functions, and forms that are also slightly different. This cannot fail to be discriminated."^[86] Ultimately, however, there is a recognizable priority assigned to shih , and on several grounds. The diction of the shih , for example, is inviolable: "Within a shih one cannot write in the language of tz'u , but within a tz'u there is no prohibition against the language of shih ."^[87] The mastery of one must also precede that of the other: "Shih and tz'u have one principle; nevertheless, someone who is not skilled at tz'u can be skilled at shih , but someone who is not skilled at shih decidedly cannot be skilled at tz'u . Therefore, in studying tz'u it is important first to master shih . If in writing shih one has not yet planted one's feet firmly anywhere and yet rushes off to study tz'u —I've never seen anyone manage both."^[88] And finally, there is the intractable fact of temporal precedence: "Shih has its own realm, and tz'u has its own realm: the two share one principle. There are realms that have been opened up by shih poets, however, that tz'u poets have not yet seen, owing to the fact that one came before the other in time." Ch'en goes on to single out various shih poets whose "realms" have in fact been explored by counterparts in the tz'u tradition, but he insists that none has matched the achievements of T'ao Ch'ien and Tu Fu; that possibility, however, may certainly yet be fulfilled.^[89]