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With this book, Yang Yuanzheng has produced what will long be regarded as a ground-breaking milestone in the voluminous scholarship on Jiang Kui (1155–1221). Based in part on his 2011 discovery of a major new source of Jiang’s work, Yang employs close textual reading and editorial interpretation of this text, augmented by meticulous examination of other material, to tease out an important and innovative explanation of why lyric songs enjoyed such a remarkable renaissance in the eighteenth century, a popularity that has continued through the present. Yang attributes the original revival of Jiang’s works to Qing dynasty oppression of the southern Chinese elite and points to an increasing sense of nostalgia as the reason for their enduring popularity.
Plum Blossom on the Far Side of the Stream’s accomplishment is to draw on work from many sub-disciplines—early Chinese song forms and their notation, the literary and political movements of early modern China, codicology, and iconography—and to make fresh contributions to these areas as well. This book reflects a unique breadth of scholarship: in addition to lucid argument regarding the reception of Jiang’s work, important facsimiles of three major manuscripts, five colour plates, and an audio CD are also included.
Plum Blossom on the Far Side of the Stream’s accomplishment is to draw on work from many sub-disciplines—early Chinese song forms and their notation, the literary and political movements of early modern China, codicology, and iconography—and to make fresh contributions to these areas as well. This book reflects a unique breadth of scholarship: in addition to lucid argument regarding the reception of Jiang’s work, important facsimiles of three major manuscripts, five colour plates, and an audio CD are also included.
Price: £84.80
Pages: 428
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Imprint: Hong Kong University Press
Publication Date:
25 December 2019
Trim Size: 12.00 X 9.00 in
ISBN: 9789888390823
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
‘This book will be welcomed by anyone studying the works of poet-musician Jiang Kui, especially that part of his lyric oeuvre for which his own settings with musical notation survive. Specifically musicological study of Jiang Kui has been intense, but in the cross-disciplinary field of historical musico-literary studies, rarely does painstaking critical analysis of material so successfully further illuminate the music. Yang’s conclusions radically change the outlook of the field.’
—Rembrandt Wolpert, University of Arkansas
—Rembrandt Wolpert, University of Arkansas
Introduction: “Beside the plum tree, playing my flute, calling, awakening my jade lady.” 1
(Jiang Kui, Secret Fragrance, 1191)
Chapter 1: “So, together there is now a total of fifty-eight pieces.” 10
(Wu Chunhuan, preface to the Jiaxing edition of Jiang Kui’s lyric songs, c. 1710)
Chapter 2: “All the six fascicles are perfectly preserved, as if protected by a heavenly spirit.” 17
(Lu Zhonghui, preface to the Lu edition of Jiang Kui’s oeuvre, 1743)
Chapter 3: “A glorious light-beam, a hundred furlongs in length.” 24
(Min Hua, on the occasion of the publication of the Lu edition, 1743)
Chapter 4: “A somersault, in which the body turns 360 degrees with the feet passing over the head.” 42
Chapter 5: “Try peering through the river mist and look for a fishing dinghy eight feet long.” 59
(Fu Zeng, poetry addressed to Wang Danlü, 1736)
Chapter 6: “With gold, cast a statue of Jiang Kui, and three times a day burn incense for it.” 69
(Jiang Bingyan, from a ci to the melody West River Moon, 1737)
Conclusion: “Jiang Baishi of the Southern Song, by his profound feelings and singular creativity, is able
to supersede the superficiality of direct description, the wind and the dust, but does not lose the magical
mellifluousness familiar since the Wei and Jin.” 77
(Quan Zuwang, preface to Fu Zeng’s anthology The Spring Duck Poetry Collection, c. 1753)
Appendix 1: Jiang Kui’s Lyric Songs as They Appear in Editions from the Mid-Thirteenth to the
Mid-Eighteenth Centuries 84
Appendix 2: Lyric Songs Misattributed to Jiang Kui from the Mid-Thirteenth to the
Mid-Eighteenth Centuries 87
Notes on the Musical Recordings 88
New Critical Edition 89
Facsimile 1: The Shanghai MS 191
Facsimile 2: Bao Tingbo’s copy of the 1749 Zhang edition 255
Facsimile 3: Tracing copy of Jiang Bingyan’s manuscript 324
Colour Plates 387
List of Poems Translated 395
List of Chinese Terms 396
Works Cited 401
Index 409