ChinaKnowledge.de -
An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History and Literature
Gushixuan 古詩選 "Selected ancient poems" is an anthology of regular poems (lüshi 律詩) from the Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) to the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368). It was compiled during the Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Wang Shizhen 王士禛 (1634-1711). Wang Shizhen has selected exemplary five-syllable (wuyanshi 五言詩) and seven-syllable regular poems (qiyanshi 七言詩) as those of the most widespread and common type of Chinese poetry. In order to discern Wang’s anthology from Chen Zuoming’s 陳祚明 (1623-1674) earlier collection of the same name, the latter is called Caishutang gushixuan 采菽堂古詩選, and the former Ruanting gushixuan 阮亭古詩選, like the studio name of Wang Shizhen.
The anthology of 32 juan length includes a lot of poems, the first 17 juan five-syllable poems from the Han to the Tang 唐 (618-907), the last 15 juan seven-syllable poems from antiquity to the Yuan period. Almost all surviving Han period poems are included in the Gushixuan, yet those from later periods have been included only selectively. The reason is that Wang was convinced that five-syllable regular poems of the Han period was directly influenced by the poems of the Classic Shijing 詩經 "Book of Songs", while the seven-syllable poems of later ages were already to distant from this paradigmatic collection. Among the seven-syllable poems, those from the Tang period are dominating. The quality of the selected poems is generally rated as relatively high, and the Gushixuan is therefore an excellent and detailed overview of regular poems through the ages.
There are, nevertheless, some shortcomings. There are only five poets from the Tang period as representatives of five-syllable poems, namely Chen Zi'ang 陳子昂 (661-702), Zhang Jiuling 張九齡 (678-740), Li Bai 李白 (701-762), Wei Yingwu 韋應物 (737?-791) and Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773-819), and not a single five-syllable poem of the great master Du Fu 杜甫 (712-770) included (only one seven-syllable poem), whom Wang Shizhen himself interpreted as the most important and influential poet of all times. The great masters Wang Bo 王勃 (650-676), Yang Jiong 楊炯 (650-693), Lu Zhaolin 盧照鄰 (634?-689), Luo Binwang 駱賓王 (640?-684?) and Yuan Zhen 元稹 (779-831). The name of Bai Juyi 白居易 (772-846) is not even mentioned.
There is a commentary from the Qianlong reign-period 乾隆 (1736-1795), the Gushi jian 古詩箋 by Wen Rentan 聞人倓. The Gushixuan was printed at that time by the Zhilan Studio 芷蘭堂. A modern edition has been published by the Shanghai guji press 上海古籍出版社 in 1980.
Caishutang gushixuan 采菽堂古詩選 is a collection of regular-style (shi 詩) poems from the Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) to the Southern Dynasties period 南朝 (420-589). It was compiled by Chen Zuoming 陳祚明 (1623-1674), courtesy name Yinqian 胤倩, style Xiliu Shanren 嵇留山人, studio name Caishutang 采菽堂, from Hangzhou 杭州, Zhejiang. He was a famous poet himself. His collected writings are called Bizhou ji 敝帚集 or Xiliu Shanren ji 嵇留山人集.
The collection has a length of 38 juan, with an appendix of 4 fascicles, and was finished in 1663, but only printed in 1709 by Chen’s disciple Weng Songnian 翁嵩年 (1648-1730). The title has been chosen to discern the anthology from Wang Shizhen’s 王士禛 (1634-1711) Gushixuan 古詩選. Chen’s anthology was inspired by Feng Weine’s 馮惟訥 (1513-1572) collection Gushiji 古詩紀. It adds brief commentaries to the poems selected and their authors. Because of his own preferences, Chen Zuoming included almost the complete poems of Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (Tao Qian 陶潛, c. 365-427), but also such of famous writers as Cao Zhi 曹植 (192-232), Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210-263), Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385-433), Bao Zhao 鮑照 (c. 414-466), Xie Tiao 謝朓 (464-499), Shen Yue 沈約 (441-513) or Yu Xin 庾信 (513-581).
The book was not as widespread as Wang Shizhen’s Gushixuan.