The Wenxuan Scholarship And Its Affiliated Studies Throughout History

In his Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters,Qian Zhongshu says: “among literary works,only from Wenxuan(A Literary Selection by Prince Zhaoming)and The Dream of Red Mansions,entire scholarships have been evolved,which can be compared to the statuses of The Book of Change and The Book of Songs in the studies of Classics and the studies of The Analytical Dictionary of Characters.The scholarships of the two literary works have lasted long ever since the births of the two books.” Qian's words proves the value of Wenxuan scholarship.Wang Shucai's A History of the Development of the Studies on A Literary Selection by Prince Zhaoming is a monograph on the Wenxuan scholarship throughout history.This dissertation tries to make a reexamination of the history of Wenxuan scholarship after Wang's book.Chapter One: From the analysis of the materials in The New Word of Great Tang and History of Tang,the author assumes that the record in LiYong's Biography in The Old History of Tang that Li Shan “had learned Wenxuan from his town fellow Cao Xian” cannot be trusted.Based on the achievements in the studies on the relationship between Cao Xian and Li Shan's texts and annotations,it is assumed that Cao Xian and Li Shan had no relationship of master and disciple.The fact that Li Shan's annotations featured allusion had something to do with the emphasis on the dual structure of allusion and rhetoric in the practices of reference book compiling and palace poetry composing at that time.The reaction to Li Shan's annotations by the five ministers' annotations was not due to the willingness of the five ministers to return to the annotating tradition of literary works from Han and Wei dynasties,but had something to do with the change of poetry style in the early Tang period.It is proved through textual analysis that the place Li Shan went to during Qianfeng Period was Jingcheng as recorded in Biographies of Scholars in The Old History of Tang and it was due to a banishment.According to the history reference book Cefu Yuangui and the gravestone inscription of Helan Minzhi,Li Shan had twice been a minister of Chongxian Academy and a Mishu Lang or Lantai Lang.From a close reading of Wenxuanchao and Lun Shanjing's annotations,we see Wenxuanchao had already had a consciousness of the importance of explanatory notes on the subjects,and there were clear traces of the pattern of Wenxuanchao in the five ministers' explanatory notes on the subjects.The losing of Wenxuanchao had something to do with its not being taken into the official book system of Tang Dynasty.The conciseness of Lu's annotations was due to his conscious pursuit and a comparison between Lu's annotations to the Songs of the South and Hong Xingzu's Supplement Notes to Songs of the South shows that there are many agreements between the two and the value of Lu's annotations to the Songs of the South is evident.The allusions of Yao He's poems to Wenxuan are pointed out and analysed,from which the importance attached to Wenxuan by Tang poets could be seen but the traces were intentionally faded out.Chapter Two: In the early Song Dynasty there still was a trend a canonization of Wenxuan.Fan Zhongyan,Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi's reform in the imperial examination was a direct confrontation by the lower and middle intellectuals to the advocating of Wenxuan in early Song society.Sun Fu,Shi Jie,Hu Yuan,Li Jin,Zhou Dunru,Shao Yong,Zhang Zai and the two Cheng Brothers had supported the confrontation directly or indirectly.Su Shi belonged this group and also advanced the movement.It should be pointed out that the political significance in the confrontation was larger the literary one.The researches on the annotations to literary works in Song Dynasty show the influence of Wenxuan on literature in Early Song still existed after the Wang Ansh Reform.With lots of history records the paper argues that there was a return to the trend of canonizing of Wenxuan in South Song period.Through a classification and analysis of textual researches in Song Dynasty,the paper concludes that the researches during that period were conscientious and more attention was paid to Li Shan's annotations than to that of the five ministers' and while most results concerning Li Shan's annotations were correct,many results concerning the errors of the five ministers' annotations were incorrect.From the researches on Wenxuan in Fang Songqing's Correction of the Collection Han Yu's Works,the paper concludes that the text of Wu Zhaoyi's version of the five ministers' annotations had referred to the text of Li Shan's annotations.Through an examination of the exegesis of literary works in Song Dynasty,the paper finds that Wenxuan was an important book for reference and Li Shan's practice of citing the sources had deeply influenced the exegesis of literary works in Song Dynasty.In the background of Tang and Song poetry,the papers traces back the contexts of the making of the idioms such as “grass was called prince's descendants”,“plum was called envoy”,“the moon was called Wangshu” and “mountain and water were called the clear and shiny”,and concludes that the record that “in early period of our dynasty Wenxuan was advocated ” in The Notes of the Old Scholar's Sanctuary was not true.Chapter Three: In the nearly one hundred years from the beginning of Ming Dynasty to Tianshun Period,the Wenxuan scholarship was neglected to the uttermost.In the 23 rd year of Chenghua Period(1487),the appearance the carving edition of Wenxuan by Zhu Zhizhi the prince of Tang had influenced the Wenxuan scholarship in Ming Dynasty.From Chenghua to Chongzhen peroid,the Wenxuan scholarship characterized by deletions of annotations and comments gradually matured and a vulgarizing trend was evident.People in Ming Dynasty stressed the literary world of Wenxuan rather than its scholarship.As for the relationship between Wenxuan and the important literary schools in Ming Dynasties,the former and latter Pleiades and the YunJian group attached importance to Wenxuan,but it was clear that Wenxuan could not satisfy the former and latter Pleiades' need of returning to the ancients.Li Mengyang's poems in ancient style drawed reference from Wenxuan greatly,which can be seen as an example of the influence of Wenxuan on the poems by the former and latter Pleiades.As for the deletion of annotations,Lü Zuqian and Zhu Xi's practice in South Song Dynasty were the precedents,and Wang Shouren's thought on the mind and the emergence of the citizen stratum also exerted great influence.Chapter four: From an examination of the cultural background of the stress of Wenxuan and Li Shan's annotation in Qing Dynasty,and using a statistical mode,the paper argues that the trend of citing of Wenxuan in academic studies from early Qing period to Qianlong,Jiaqing and Daoguang Periods became more and more evident,and it shows that the scholarship in Qing Dynasty had benefited from Wenxuan and its annotations greatly.In philology,classic studies,historiography and philosophy of Qing Dynasty,Li Shan's annotations were continuously being cited and this proves the multiple values of Li Shan's annotations.During this process,the loss of Li Shan' s annotation appeared,such as the errors in citing and the carelessness in interpretation and so on.As a result a number of high quality books on the collation of and textual researches on Wenxuan with Li Shan's annotations appeared.In this situation,the Wenxuan scholarship in Qing Dynasty culminated.The passage on Yu Xiaoke and Wenxuan Yinyi has verified Yu Xiaoke's birth and death dates reliably and solved the related disputes in academic studies and it contends that the haste publishing of Wenxuan Yinyi had something to do with the reform in the imperial examination system in the 22 nd year of Qianlong Period.The the citing of Wenxuan in annotating Tang poems in Qing Dynasty was also evident,it followed the annotation to Tang poems by people in Song Dynasty in form,and manifested an aggravated trend of textual research in spirit.And attention should also be paid to the different choices of Li Shan' annotations and the five ministers' annotations in citing of Wenxuan.