Liu Kezhuang on Tang Poetry

Tang Studies 13 (1995) L iu K e zh u a n g o n T a n g P o e try MICHAEL FULLER UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA, IRVINE What is perfect poetry? The question is a bit odd, but it is central not only to the practice of the craft, but also to the commentary tradition . Should poems be considered as realizations of their type: the perfect farewell poem, or Western Jin poems? Or is there a single standard, absolute poetry? Much is at stake here. Absolute poetry, in the end, must be about and for itself: it cannot wait upon the vicissitudes of experience or even authorial identity. This is poetry as ii, as if it were the Ii of the radical daoxue thinkers: a form out of time, always present but attainable in fact only by the sage. This sort of absolute poetry seems to me to be the model offered by Yan Yu in the Canglang shihua. His authors are a strangely faceless lot: The Han and Wei are superior-they did not need enlightenment. From Xie Lingyun to the High Tang masters there is fully penetrating enlightenment. Although there is some enlightenment among the others, in no case is there lithe primary truth." ... There are those in the world who can be disregarded as persons but whose words cannot be disregarded. Such is the Way of Poetry ....• And, as the most famous image from the Canglang shihua suggests, perfection in the Way of Poetry requires a hiding of the traces: In the stirring and excitement of their poetry, the High Tang writers were those antelopes that hang by their horns, leaving no tracks to be followed.2 1 The translation is Stephen Owen's, from Reading in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge : Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard Univ., 1992),402. Also see Van Yu ff&3J'3, Canglang shihua jiao shi ~ifJlt;J~f$t~, ed. Guo Shaoyu !1Ilt.?1rJl (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1983), 12. 2 Owen, 406. As Guo Shaoyu points out, the image itself comes from the Buddhist Chuan deng iu. 119 Fuller: Liu Kezhuang on Tang Poetry It seems, moreover, that in the end, this notion of perfection with Ii as its model prevailed.3 In this paper, I shall talk about a very different understanding of poetry and its perfection. Liu Kezhuang I'J1liff (1187-1269)saw poetry as profoundly connected to both its historical moment and its author's character and saw perfection in the synthesis of language, moment, and intention. He published his first shihua after Yan Yu and presumably had a wider circulation in what was left of national literati culture at the time, yet his influence waned after his death and the fall of the Southern Song ten years later. This essay will focus on Liu Kezhuang's approach to Tang poetry in particular because his understanding of the corpus of Tang verse deeply engages both his sense of poetry in general and his views of the state of poetry in his own day. Articulating Liu's stance will help clarify the complex dynamics between an inherited tradition and the exigencies of cultural and social change that shape literary history. Lru KEZHUANG: AN INITIAL CONTEXT Liu Kezhuang, born in 1187,was from a locally important clan in Putian, Fujian. His father, Liu Mizheng i1HiIE (1157-1213)rose to the rank of Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel l!t:m#.fh~,rank 3b, during the reign of Ningzong. Like many sons of prominent officials , Liu Kezhuang entered government service through yin privilege . His career was a rather checkered affair: his tendency to speak out cut short his tours of duty in both the capital and as a local magistrate (who had the right to submit memorials). He spent much of his career holding the sinecure of a temple guardianship in his home town of Putian. Liu Kezhuang's first collection of poetry was the Nanyueji Wii~m, named for the temple to which he had been assigned after having been blamed for poor military planning while in the entourage of Li Jue .$ff. This collection attracted the attention of both Ye Shi~. and Zhen Dexiu ~t~~. Three years later...