The poet Du Fu wrote a poem "Zongwushengri" when his son was celebrating Wushengri, in which he earnestly taught his son to master the theory of Selected Works. In the Song Dynasty, there was a saying that literary works were rotten and scholars were half-talented. This ancient book, which was highly regarded as a compulsory course by ancient intellectuals, is the Selected Works of Zhaoming. Selected Works of Zhaoming is the earliest extant collection of poems and essays in China, which was compiled by Xiao Tong, the king of Liang Zhaowang in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Xiao Tong (50 1—53 1), whose real name was Texaco, was born in Xiangyang in 50 1 and his ancestral home was Nanlanling (now Wujin County, Jiangsu Province). He is the eldest son of Xiao Yan Liang Wudi in the Southern Dynasties. At the age of two, he was awarded the title of prince. According to volume 53 of Southern History, the prince was born smart. At the age of three, I loved reading The Book of Filial Piety and The Analects of Confucius. At the age of five, he read the Five Classics and learned irony. At the age of eight, Yu Shouantang gave a lecture on the Book of Filial Piety as much as he could.
Xiao Tong is well versed in etiquette, pure in temperament, filial and kind. At the age of sixteen, his mother was seriously ill. He moved from the East Palace to his mother's residence in Yongfu Province, where he was sick day and night and was naked. After his mother died, he was heartbroken and his diet was ruined. His father tried to persuade him to eat several times, but he still refused to eat fruit and meat. He used to be a strong man, but after the funeral, he became devastated, and the officials and the people were moved to tears. Xiao Tong is full of sympathy. /kloc-When he was 0/2 years old, he went to see the prisoner's trial. After studying the case file carefully, he said: this man's forgiveness is excusable. Can I make a judgment?
The criminal officer agreed, so he was lenient. Afterwards, the criminal officer reported the situation to Liang Wudi Xiao Yan, and Xiao Yan nodded and smiled, thanking his son for his generosity. So that when ministers want to be lenient with someone in the future, they deliberately drag Xiao Tong in and let him judge. During Liang Ping's reign, food prices in Beijing rose sharply due to the outbreak of war. Xiao Tong ordered the East Palace staff to tighten their belts. Whenever it rains, snows and it is cold, he sends people to help the refugees with the food and clothes saved. When he is in charge of military uniform affairs, he has to make 3 thousand more clothes every year and distribute them to the poor in winter. It is precisely because of these noble qualities that Prince Xiao Tong has won the universal love and respect of contemporary and future generations.
Xiao Tong loves reading and has a strong memory. His East Palace has a collection of nearly 30,000 books, with a wealth of talents, and its literary prosperity has never been seen since the Jin and Song Dynasties. When he was reading, he wrote a few lines side by side and remembered everything. Therefore, although he is young, he reads widely. Eternal learning. He prefers to attract talented people and reward them with fatigue. Therefore, a large number of knowledgeable intellectuals unite around him, and they often discuss' graves' and' books' together, or discuss them with bachelors. After studying, I engage in writing articles. He is rigorous and diligent in his studies and insists on writing in winter and summer vacations.
Xiao Tong has a high literary talent and appreciation. His works include 20 volumes of anthology, 10 volume of Classic Preface, 20 volumes of five-character poem Hua Ying Ji, and 30 volumes of poetry anthology of past dynasties.
Unfortunately, this incomparable Prince Huaying went to the garden to pick hibiscus flowers by boat in March 53 1 year. Unfortunately, he fell into the lake, injured his hip, delayed treatment, and died at the age of 3 1. After his death, posthumous title became Zhao Ming, so the world called him Prince Zhao Ming, and his anthology was called Zhao Ming's anthology.
The emergence of Selected Works of Zhaoming has its fertile social soil. The first is the requirements of literary creation and literary appreciation. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to social unrest, Confucian traditional ideas were strongly impacted. Coupled with the introduction of Buddhism, Taoist thought flourished again and social thought was liberated unprecedentedly. Literati broke through the shackles of the literary views of Confucianism, Taoism, Sage and Buddhism, expressed their feelings with great enthusiasm, reflected the society and praised nature. Since Jian 'an literature, it has created unprecedented literary prosperity. However, in the case that every family has its own system and everyone has its own collection, these works are inevitably mixed, and a large number of miscellaneous works have spread to the society, which has caused adverse effects on future generations. This requires people of insight to screen these works, so as to get rid of the rough and the fine, and to get rid of the false and keep the true.
It can be said that Selected Works of Zhaoming was produced in response to this social requirement. Secondly, the compilation of Selected Works of Zhaoming also has certain literary theory guidance. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the academic atmosphere was very active, and various theories were established one after another. Since Jian 'an literature, scholars have re-recognized the essence and function of literature. Cao Pi's Dian Lun Essays distinguished literary works from academic works for the first time, equating their values, and made literary works get rid of the subordinate position of the vassal of Confucian classics. At the end of the article, Cao Pi also put forward the academic idea that articles are the same but different, and began an in-depth study of stylistic features.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, a large number of outstanding literary masters emerged, such as Liu Xie, Zhong Rong and Lu Ji. They systematically summarized and commented on predecessors' works, made more in-depth philosophical thinking and theoretical explanation, summarized various laws of literature, and pushed ancient literary theory to * * *. At this time, literary critics have a clearer understanding of style. They analyze the relationship between words and quality, and divide articles into two categories: words and pens. Although their views are different, they generally refer to narrative lyric articles such as poetry, fu, Sao and prose as prose, which is roughly equivalent to what we now call literary works; Calling ideological and philosophical works and historical records pens is roughly equivalent to what we now call academic works and applied articles.
The Selected Works of Zhaoming came into being under this background. Its appearance shows that people pay great attention to literary works, which is the inevitable product of the highly developed literary creation and criticism at that time. It is not only an activity of consciously screening previous literary works, but also an activity of consciously protecting and publicizing literary masterpieces. At the same time, the anthology itself is also a kind of literary criticism. Through the selection of predecessors' literary works, it reflects the writer's evaluation of the writer's creative achievements, and also reflects the writer's own literary views and ideological tendencies, which is a summary of the literary creation style and appreciation fashion of a period; It has played an important role in preserving ancient book culture and recommending outstanding works of predecessors to readers. When literary creation develops to a certain stage, it is very meaningful to make such a selection and arrangement.
The original 30-volume Selected Works of Zhaoming has a huge system and rich selections. From the creation time of Wenxuan, Wenxuan began in the pre-Qin period and ended before the seventh year of Liang Dynasty (AD 526). The selected writers include Qu Yuan, Jia Yi, Sima Qian, Ban Gu,,, Zuo Si, Zhang Heng, Cao Cao, Cao Zhi, Serina Liu, RoyceWong, Lu Ji, Xie Lingyun, Jiang Yan, and even Ren 129 famous writers and their works, and many others. From the perspective of article separation, this paper selects the theories of Fu, Poetry, Sao, Qi, Zhao, Shu, Preface, Teaching, Writing, Expressing, Writing, Empathy, Seeking, Remembering, Writing, Moving, Interrogating, Setting Theory, Speaking, Preface, Ode, Perfecting Life and History. This book has 480 articles and more than 700 poems. From a modern point of view, these poems generally include three kinds of works: poetry, ci fu and essays.
Judging from the works selected in Selected Works of Zhaoming, Xiao Tong has noticed the difference and connection between literature and quality. He distinguished Confucian classics, sub-books and literary works, and boldly excluded non-literature from the anthology. At the same time, he also clearly realized that literary works are often literary, and the changes of various articles can also be traced back. Therefore, his selection criteria emphasize both literary quality and artistic quality, that is, the ideological content and artistic form of his works should be perfect. However, in practice, he was inevitably influenced by the fashion of emphasizing the beauty of artistic form in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and preferred to use Mandarin. Therefore, the articles selected in Selected Works of Zhaoming mostly pursued rhetoric, and the selection criteria were somewhat narrow. Many good poems were not selected because the prose was simple.
In the preface of Selected Works, Xiao Tong indicated his selection criteria. The general principle is that the selection of essays must be based on meditation and the meaning should be based on profundity. We can sum up his specific selection criteria into six points. (18) Don't choose classics, (28) Don't choose philosophers, (3) Don't choose red tape, (48) Don't choose notes for biographies, (5) The number of collections increases, and the selection must be strict. (6) There are only praise, theory, narration and narration in history books. Another guiding principle is that the details are closer and farther.
Xiao Tong's general requirements for literary works include the relationship between the structure, ideological content and language form. He believes that meditation is the necessary condition and inevitable result of writing activities and articles. The ideological content expressed in justice articles must be reflected by vivid language that is true, accurate and rich in literary talent.
Based on this principle, Confucian classics are not selected in the literary selection of Zhaoming, mainly because they are not rich enough, and because Confucian classics are sacred books, they dare not be screened. Confucian classics are articles on philosophical thoughts contended by a hundred schools of thought, which do not aim at literature, while history aims at chronicle, praising and criticizing things and distinguishing similarities and differences, which is different from literary works, and the praise sequence of history books is comprehensive. Another kind of colourful poems and object-chanting poems, which were popular at that time, were not selected for lack of meditation. Xiao Tong's meticulous principle of selecting essays is also very prominent in Selected Works. Among the more than 1 100 works in Selected Works, the works after Jin account for the vast majority, including 1 13 works by Lu Ji alone, 4 1 works by Xie Lingyun and 33 works by Jiang Yan. This not only reflects Xiao Tong's view that literature is constantly developing and perfecting, but also reflects his calmness to the beauty of form, writing and structure of literature.
The publication of Selected Works of Zhaoming is of great significance in the history of China literature. His "Selected Works" and "Selected Pen" combined with the literary theories of Liu Xie and Zhong Rong from the perceptual point of view, which made people have a clearer and deeper understanding of the nature of literature. His selected works are commensurate with the quality of literature, and he advocates paying equal attention to literary ideology and formal beauty, which is of guiding significance to later generations' creation and promotes literary creation. The anthology is also more accurate, and there is a complete anthology as a concrete specimen of literature, which provides convenience for future generations to learn literature. At the same time, it also created favorable conditions for future generations to study the literary development of these seven or eight hundred years.
However, Selected Works of Zhaoming also has some limitations. Because its selection criteria are not scientific enough, many literary works of classics, philosophers and history are excluded, and many excellent Yuefu poems and outstanding literati works in the Han Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties are not selected because of their simplicity, while overbearing Han Fu, leisurely poems and poems emphasizing rhetoric in the Southern and Northern Dynasties are selected too much. Moreover, the classification is too detailed, which is inevitably cumbersome. Moreover, Xiao Tong's understanding of the article is somewhat different from modern people's views on literary works. The meaning he refers to is relatively broad, which is different from the present meaning, while the formal meaning is relatively narrow, mainly referring to rhetoric, duality and temperament, so it should be recognized when reading.
As soon as Selected Works of Zhaoming came out, it was highly valued by ancient scholars. In the Tang Dynasty, with the anthology, people used it as a teaching material to educate future generations. Shan Li in the Tang Dynasty said that the Selected Works became fashionable in later generations after it was written, showing its position in people's minds. The literary anthologies of later generations are all inspired by it. Since Cao Xian in the Sui Dynasty, many people have studied and annotated the Selected Works of Zhaoming, and formed a special knowledge-the study of selected works. The most famous annotation is the Notes on Selected Works by Shan Li, a bachelor of Chongwen Museum in Tang Dynasty, with a total of 60 volumes.
Shan Li's annotations are characterized by wide citation, with 23 kinds of books cited, 1689 kinds, comprehensive annotations, and emphasis on no words and no books. However, there are also quotations that are not explained, which is inevitably a bit cumbersome. During the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, assistant minister of the Ministry of Industry Lv Yanzhou called Lv Yanji, Liu Liang, Zhang Tong, Lv Xiang and Li Han to re-annotate the Selected Works. The so-called five-minister annotation was parallel to Shan Li's annotation. However, some scholars are quite critical of the notes of the five ministers, which are considered to be rough. However, Chen Wu's annotation does have some merits in dredging the meaning of the text, which can be used as a supplement to the rare edition. By the Southern Song Dynasty, people had combined Notes of Five Ministers and Kindness into one book, named Notes of Six Ministers for reference.
Zhu Qi, an Anhui scholar and scholar in the Qing Dynasty, wrote 24 volumes of Selected Works, which is a good reference book for studying Selected Works of Zhaoming. Annotations on Zhao Ming's selected works in Qing Dynasty include Hu Kejia's Textual Research, Liang Zhangju's Selected Works, Notes on Hu Wenqi's Selected Works, and Wang Shihan's Selected Works Jurisprudence. In modern times, there are Ding's Selected Works and Luo Hongkai's Selected Works, both of which have certain reference value.
The existing Selected Works of Zhaoming include Youshu edition in the eighth year of Xichun in the Southern Song Dynasty, BenQ Pavilion edition and Hu Kejia reprint in Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, with textual research 10 volume. Later prints were mostly based on Hooke's prints. Now there is a copy of Zhonghua Book Company.