The Editions Of Wang Yucheng’s Writings

Wang Yucheng was a pioneer of the poetic and literary innovation movement in the Northern Song Dynasty,and wrote a great deal during his life.Although most of his works have been lost over time,his poetry and prose have been preserved in three books: Xiao Xu Ji,Xiao Xu Waiji,and Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties.Xiao Xu Ji contains 544 poems and 240 essays,while Xiao Xu Waiji has 44 poems and 57 essays,and Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties includes 17 supplemental historical essays on the Five Dynasties period.Xiao Xu Ji was compiled by Wang Yucheng himself in the third year of the Xianping reign(1000)of Emperor Zhenzong of Song.Although it was originally divided into thirty volumes,it was later erroneously recorded as twenty volumes in the history of Song.The sixty-two volume edition was compiled by Huang Pilie from his family’s collection.The Huangzhou edition,published by Shen Yuqing of the Southern Song Dynasty,became the ancestor of all later editions.Other main versions include the Song edition supplemented by Huangzhou carving,the Ye Zhuzhai copy,and the Zhao Shudian edition.The current widely used edition is the second print of Sibu Congkan,which was reproduced from the Song edition supplemented by Lv Wudang’s copy.Xiao Xu Waiji,a compilation of Wang Yucheng’s previously omitted poetry and prose,was organized into twenty volumes by his great-grandson Wang Fen.However,only seven to thirteen volumes of this work have survived to the present day.The main versions of Xiao Xu Waiji include a Song edition fragment stored in Japan’s Shizutaka Library,as well as several copies of later editions produced during the Qing Dynasty.These include copies made by Wu Yifeng in the forty-first year of the Qianlong reign(1776)and by the Liu family’s Weijing Shu bookstore in the eleventh year of the Daoguang reign(1831).Ultimately,all of these copies trace back to the original Song edition fragment.The exact date of the compilation of Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties is unknown,but scholars estimate that it was written between 998 and 1001 during the period when Emperor Zhenzong of Song ordered Wang Yucheng to participate in the revision of Taizu Shilu until his death in the fourth year of the Xianping reign(1001).Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties has several surviving versions,including the Mao’s Ji Guge edition,the Wu Zitian carved edition,the Cheng’s Rong River Residence edition,and the Feng Zhishi family’s handwritten copies.Due to the rarity of Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties throughout history,it is largely absent from historical catalogs.The main surviving versions of Lost Writings From the Five Dynasties include the Mao’s Ji Guge edition and the Shanyin Song family’s carved edition.Wang Yucheng was a pioneer of the poetry and prose reform movement in the Northern Song Dynasty.He advocated for a refined and innovative approach to literature,and made it his mission to revolutionize the styles of poetry and prose.He rejected the decadent and ornate styles of writing that had been popular since the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period.Instead,he drew inspiration from the theories of the ancient prose movement,advocated by Han Yu and others during the Tang Dynasty,and applied them to his own writing.His writing style was plain and easy to understand,with simple and concise language that eschewed falsehoods.Wang Yucheng’s literary contributions had a significant impact on the poetry and prose reform movement of later generations.