| The Edo period was a high of Du-poetry reception in Japan.In the Edo period,the emergence of the DuLv commentaries occurs in the following historical contexts:first was the influence of the revivalist thinking of Confucianism in the Edo period.With the Tokugawa shogunate making Shushi-Gaku(aka.Edo Neo-Confucianism)an official school,traditional Chinese Confucianism became widespread in Japan,and Song school propagated to the east and became widely accepted.As a result,Du Fu with his literary creations,which were revered in Song school,were also accepted by the literati scholars of the Edo period.The second was the influence of Ming and Qing poetic theory.The influence of theories of Shenyun,Gediao,and Xingling in the Edo period poetry circle was enormous,and Tang dynasty culture was held in high regard,bringing Du Fu’s poetry to the attention of more Edo literati.Third was the Japanese local and cultural influences.In terms of aesthetics,the traditional culture was a place where ’mourning’,the emotional meaning of sorrow and compassion,was valued,and the compassionate Confucianism displayed in Du Fu’s poems was in harmony with the traditional culture of ’mourning’,’mystery’,and ’silence’:In terms of education,the Edo shogunate considered education of great importance,and most of the educators were great scholars,and these scholars often read Du poetries,such as Tsuzuki Takayuki,so the schools became important bases for the popularisation of Du poetry;in terms of social life,the rise of the Edo period’s townsmen culture contributed to the acceptance and creation of Chinese-style poetry,with Bai Juyi and Du Fu becoming the subjects of literary emulation,and the printing artisans brought back by Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his invasion of Korea contributed to the improvement of Japanese printing,which ensured the publication and distribution of the Du collection.In the Ming dynasty,Shao Fu’s Du Lv Ji Jie was re-carved and re-printed for more than twenty times,and on this basis,Japanese scholars either used it as a base or copied it,gradually producing new commentaries on Du Lv.At present,there are five types of Edo-period Dulv commentaries at that time:six volumes of Utsunomiya Ton’an’s AoTouZengGuangDuLvJiJie,two volumes of DuLvYaoYue whose author remains to be unknown,three volumes of Tabuchi Suemats’s DuLvPingCong,three volumes of Daiten Kenjo’s DuLvFaHui,and three volumes of Tsuzuki Takayuki’s DuLvXiangJie and.These five types of DuLv commentaries had different styles when interpreting Du’s poetries.In short,their styles could be categorized into two groups:the one with the emphasis on facts,and the one on extension,expansion,and extrapolation of Du Fu’s ideas.Among them,AoTouZengGuangDuLvJiJie cited extensive references to fill things that might be missing in order to understand Du completely;DuLvYaoYue was short and concise,provided comments on the other commentaries;DuLvPingCong was eclectic,compiling and discussing ideas of various schools and theories;DuLvFaHui with its elegant words,debated and refuted theories from various schools;DuLvXiangJie intended to re-interpret and re-explain the ideas of Du.These five DuLv Commentaries manifested different methodologies of DuLv commenting:Utsunomiya Ton’an and Tsuzuki Takayuki were both educators.However,the former employed Jinsi Study as guidelines,making his commentary on Dulv very detail-oriented;the later advocated eclecticism,focusing on interpreting Du Fu’s idea subjectively with his own understandings.Daiten Kenjo on the other hand,established very unique criticism system when commenting on DuLv.The Japanese Edo-period Dulv’s commentaries were deeply influenced by China’s Du poetry commentaries,and there are many direct excerpts from the Du poetry commentaries and poetic discourses of China.Many of Edo-period Dulv’s commentaries,especially on Du poetry’s diction,canonical facts,poetic method,and even poetic meaning,were directly excerpted from Chinese scholars.In the process of these excerptions,many mistakes and omissions inevitably occurred,such as over-interpretation or misinterpretation of Du’s poetic meaning,or blind quotations from unreliable commentary sources.However,there are also new ideas,such as Utsunomiya Ton’an’s interpretation of the poem’s title,and Tsuzuki Takayuki’s biography of Du Fu,which showed that foreign scholars’understanding of DuLv was closely associated with their distinctive cultural characteristics.The influence of the five Edo-period Dulv commentaries on the eastern transmission of Du poetry should not be overlooked,as they were not only widely propagated in Japan,but also they led to a surge in the study of Du Fu and his poetry,as evidenced by the proliferation of special studies on Dulv,Du’s poetry,and Du Fu himself,and the increase on poet creation emulating Du Fu’s poets.The Edo-period commentaries on the Dulv can be regarded as the vanguard of Dulv study in Japan.Under the influence of Dulv’s commentaries,the poetry style in the Edo-period was also changed,emulating Du Fu and praising Confucianism:on one hand,Japanese Han poets studied Du’s poetic allusions,imagery and techniques;on the other hand,it changed the trend of praising Bai Letian’s poets,and the combination of literature with Confucianism became the new trend of that time.The spirit of valuing history and the Confucianism displayed in Dulv was also respected by the Edo literati,based on the widespread acceptance of Confucianism. |
