Prefaces” are juxtaposed with the poems but not integrated with
them—they never depict the act of poetic utterance within the
framework of their narratives, but comment on it after the fact. The anecdotes of Storied Poems, however, invariably depict the utterance of the poem and any response it might receive within the narrative,
which provides a means of ascertaining how far depictions of poetic
—————
57. Van Zoeren, Poetry and Personality, p. 95.
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Gleaning the Heart
practice deviate from the canonical precepts cited by Meng Qi in his
preface.
After telling us of his marriage of poems to narratives, Meng Qi
states, “I offer them to all fellow enthusiasts.” This is an indication of the type of audience Meng expected to reach as well as of his motivations for compiling his collection. His use of the term “fellow en-
thusiasts” 好事 is illuminated by a passage in the Han History about the famous man of letters, Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 b.c.e.–18 c.e.), who
had retired on account of illness: “His home was unadorned and
frugal; he was fond of wine, but people rarely arrived at his
gate. Occasionally, a fellow enthusiast would bring along some wine
and tidbits to follow him in their studies” 家素貧。耆酒。人希至其
門。時有好事者載酒肴從游學. 58 The connotation is one of mutual
enjoyment of a pleasurable pastime rather than a serious pursuit.
The phrase crops up in other prefaces of the Tang. We might re-
call Wei Xun’s statement regarding his collection: “I pass it on to
fellow enthusiasts as an aid in conversation.” Zheng Qi 鄭綮 (d. 899),
in his preface to A Record of Credible Accounts Transmitted from the Kaiyuan and Tianbao Eras 開天傳信記, asks that “fellow enthusiasts
will contemplate my intent, forgive my foolishness, and affirm my
heart” 好事者觀其志。寬其愚。是其心也. 59 Meng’s use of the phrase
indicates that, with Storied Poems, he is engaging in a widespread pastime among the official class: compilation of a collection of
somewhat unorthodox texts for no other reason than the enjoyment
of doing so and the pleasure it might bring others of a like mind.
________________________
其有出諸異傳怪錄。疑非是實者。
則略之。拙俗鄙俚。亦所不取。
In the passages drawn from strange tales and bizarre records
I have omitted anything of doubtful veracity. I also did not
include anything of a rude or vulgar nature.
________________________
—————
58. Ban, Han shu, vol. 11, p. 3585.
59. Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 140.
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Gleaning the Heart
195
The tone of the preface’s preceding line, with its offer to “fellow
enthusiasts,” seems to bring the preface to a close, creating the im-
pression that this final passage was tacked on almost as an after-
thought. It proves to be a highly revealing afterthought. This is the
only place where Meng Qi addresses the nature of his source mate-
rial. Aside from general collections, the collected works of indi-
viduals, and miscellaneous histories and biographies, he also drew
upon materials classified as xiaoshuo in the bibliographies of orthodox histories. When Meng says that he made use of “strange tales
and bizarre records” 異傳怪錄, he is referring to a broad range of
unorthodox xiaoshuo narratives now known as “bizarre accounts”
志怪 (literally, “describing the bizarre,” a term often paired with
“accounts of people” 志人) and “fantastic tales” 傳奇 (literally,
“transmitting the fantastic”). These labels were originally titles of
collections and did not constitute generic designations until after the
Tang. These generic distinctions are not hard and fast. Something as
mundane as a particularly witty bon mot might be the subject of a
“bizarre account,” and strange happenings often found their way
into narratives classified as history. The term “bizarre accounts” is
now used to retroactively encompass a large corpus of short narra-
tives that took shape from the fall of the Han onward, while “fan-
tastic tales” refers to a longer narrative form that reached maturity
in the Tang and borrows many structural features from historical
biography. 60
The earliest clear-cut distinction between “accounts of the bi-
zarre” and “fantastic tales” was made by Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 (1551–
1602), in his Collected Notes from the “Humble Abode” Mountain Re-
treat 少室山房筆叢:
Stories about strange phenomena flourished in the Six Dynasties, but they were mostly due to the faulty transmission of records and were not necessarily complete fabrications. It was not until the Tang that people began to consciously pursue the fantastic and write their compositions in the
xiaoshuo mode.
—————
60. See DeWoskin, “Six Dynasties Chih-kuai”; Yim, “Tang Ch’uan-chi”; Campany, Strange Writing; Hou, Zhongguo wenyan xiaoshuo.
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196
Gleaning the Heart
凡變異之談。盛於六朝。然多是傳錄舛訛。未必盡幻設語。至唐
人乃作意好奇。假小說以寄筆端。61
Hu bases his distinction on authorial intent: did the author intend to
fictionalize or is a lack of veracity due to faulty source materials?
Authorial intent is often unreliable and always difficult to ascertain,
making it a poor criterion for distinguishing genres. It makes more
sense to place the “accounts” and the “tales” on the same spectrum
and move from one to the other in terms of increasing sophistica-
tion in narrative techniques. 62 The importance of Hu Yinglin’s statement lies in the common element of untruth shared by both
types of narrative.
Faced with an ever-increasing number of stories in the Tang (a
situation captured in Meng Qi’s image of overflowing book-
shelves), 63 the possibility that some stories might not be true was of great concern to compilers. Meng betrays this insecurity when he
claims, “I have omitted anything of doubtful veracity,” a statement
that triggers some suspicion due to the very fact that he felt he had
to make it. He was not alone in his suspicions regarding his source
material:
—————
61. Hu, Shaoshi shanfang, juan 20, p. 20b.
62. This is what Hu Yinglin seems to be driving at elsewhere in his work when he says, “As for bizarre accounts and fantastic tales, they are particularly prone to interpenetration. Sometimes both kinds of story will be included in a single book.
Even within a single story, both types of narrative can coexist. [In these cases,] one should just simply pick out which type is prominent” 至于志怪傳奇。尤易出入。
或一書之中。二事並載。一事之內。兩端具存。姑舉且重而已 ( juan 13, p. 7a).
>
63. Liu Su, in his “General Discussion on A New Account of the Great Tang”
大唐新語總論, writes: “Between the Zhenguan and Kaiyuan eras [627–741] was
a flourishing age of composition, indeed more glorious then preceding ages” 貞觀。
開元述作為盛。蓋光於前代矣 (Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 106). Gao
Yanxiu 高彥休, in his preface to Incomplete Histories 闕史, says, “And so from the time of the Wude and Zhenguan eras [618–649] onward there was an ever increasing number of people taking up brushes to write xiaoshuo, minor records, popular histories, private histories, miscellaneous records, and miscellaneous accounts”
故自武德。貞觀而後。吮筆為小說。小錄。稗史。野史。雜錄。雜紀者多矣 (Huang,
Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 135).
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Gleaning the Heart
197
In my opinion, stories of our dynasty were never more numerous than in
the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras [713–756] . . . occasionally they have lacunae in them.
竊以國朝故事。莫盛於開元。天寶之際 . . . 或有闕焉。64
He witnessed it all firsthand and it is not derived from hearsay; it is credible and proved by evidence, so it may constitute a “veritable record.”
彼皆目睹。非出傳聞。信而有徵。可為實錄。65
The Gongyang Commentary says, “Words may differ in recording what was seen, they may differ in recording what was heard.” Every illustrative anecdote is filled out using things seen and heard.
公羊傳曰。所見異辭。所聞異辭。未有不因見聞而備故實者。66
I have taken the vestiges of these stories that must be true and compiled them into a small scroll in my free time, entitling it Miscellaneous Records of Pine View Studio.
取其必實之跡。暇日輟成一小軸。題曰松窗雜錄。67
The possibility of factual error produces an acute anxiety that
lurks in Meng Qi’s prefaces, because he admittedly makes use of
xiaoshuo source materials known to be inherently unreliable. Certainly there are many entries in Storied Poems that may strain the credence of the modern reader (especially in the sections devoted to
strange occurrences), but that is not really the issue here. Standards
of verisimilitude change with culture, time, audience, and a host
of other factors. What is significant is Meng Qi’s impulse to purify
his anecdotes and rid them of untruths (however he may have
measured them).
Meng must keep the anecdotes pure in order to maintain the in-
tegrity of the poems. A poem, by his definition, results when
“feelings stirred within take on outward form in spoken words.”
—————
64. Zheng Qi, preface to Credible Accounts Transmitted from the Kaiyuan and Tianbao Eras, in Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 140.
65. Li Deyu, preface to Collecting Mr. Liu’s Stories of the Past 次柳氏舊聞, in Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 115.
66. Li Zhao 李肇, A Supplement to the History of the Tang Dynasty 唐國史補, in Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 112.
67. Li Jun, Miscellaneous Records of Pine View Studio, in Huang, Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo, p. 139.
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Gleaning the Heart
Thus, sincerity is the essence of a poem, for while one may make a
false display of feelings, “feelings stirred” by external stimuli can
never be false. If we are to fully appreciate the expressive power of
the poem—that which “gave rise to the intoning” 興詠—then we
must be privy to its impetus, whatever “situation was encountered”
觸事. We must know what stirred the feelings, or there is a danger
that we may misinterpret the outward signs of the interior.
An awareness of this danger is inscribed in the Classic of Poetry
itself:
That glutinous millet hanging down;
oh, the sprouts of that panicled millet!
I am walking slowly,
in the core of my heart I am shaken;
those who know me
say that my heart is grieved,
those who do not know me
ask what I am seeking;
oh, you distant blue Heaven,
what kind of man is he? 68
The bowed figure in the poem is strolling across the overgrown ru-
ins of the old Zhou capital, pondering the tragedy of its demise in the
hands of ineffectual rulers. If we are not aware of this story, told to
us by the “Lesser Preface,” then the emotional impact of the poem is
lost, just as the uninformed observer might mistake the poignant
image of a man bowed under the weight of his cares for something as
mundane as a man searching for a lost object. The story is necessary
to let us become one of “those who know me” 知我者.
The poetic practice depicted in the entries of Storied Poems is
always more complicated than the theoretical statements made by
Meng Qi in his preface. His insistence on maintaining the integrity
of the background story is an attempt to portray the poem as the
genuine result of a simple process—that of external events impinging
on the interior, leading to an external verbal manifestation. He does
not openly acknowledge that a rupture may occur between the
emotion and the expression, a rupture into which the individual
—————
68. Mao #65. After Karlgren, Book of Odes, p. 45.
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Gleaning the Heart
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will insert himself in order to manipulate the form and deployment
of his expression with poetic competence. The person who utters
poetry is not simply a passive conduit transforming the world
into words; the transformation is shaped by motivations and ex-
pectations. The entries of Storied Poems, verbal constructs in themselves, are a fascinating hybrid between theory and practice, often
attempting to manifest the former, but always attached to the latter.
Meng Qi’s concern for purity turns from truth to morality when
he states, “I also did not include anything of a rude or vulgar na-
ture.” The very fact that there would be anything rude or vulgar to
exclude says something about his source material: it is certainly less
than canonical. His puritanical streak can be traced back to a
statement attributed to Confucius regarding the Classic of Poetry:
“There are three hundred Poems, but one phrase may be used to
cover them all: ‘No evil in their thoughts’ ” 詩三百。一言以蔽之。
曰 。 思 無 邪 ( Analects 2.2). “No evil in their thoughts” is a
word-for-word translation of the phrase si wu xie 思無邪, which is
from one of the Poems (Mao #297), referring to the ability of fine horses to stay on the right path—”Oh, without swerving” 69—a figure which came to stand for moral rectitude. Whether Confucius
was exploiting the phrase’s word-for-word meaning or its figural
significance (or, most likely, punning on both meanings), the intent
is clear. Meng Qi’s attempt to purify his texts of “evil thoughts” i
s
yet another example of the ongoing tension present in his preface.
His sources are noncanonical materials, yet he tries to deal with
them according to canonical precepts.
________________________
聞見非博。事多闕漏。訪於通識。期復續之。
My learning is not wide-ranging and my stories have many
lacunae, so I extend an invitation to those with more
comprehensive knowledge in the hopes that they will
continue with them.
________________________
—————
69. In the poem, the character sai 思 is simply an expletive and does not denote
“thoughts” ( si).
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Gleaning the Heart
The self-deprecating statement in closure is a ubiquitous feature
of prefaces. When Meng Qi refers to his learning (literally, what he
has “seen and heard” 聞見) as not being “wide-ranging” 博, he em-
ploys a term with an informative history. It appears in the context
of learning early on, in a statement attributed to Confucius:
“Wide-ranging study and a steadfast will, sincere inquisitiveness
and self-reflection: humaneness resides in these” 博學而篤志。切問
而近思。仁在其中矣 ( Analects 19.6). Since “ humaneness” 仁 was a
basic Confucian virtue, this placed great importance on wide-
ranging study. Yet Confucius also placed tacit restrictions on
what topics were worthy of inquiry: “The master never spoke of
bizarre phenomena, use of force, violence, or spirits” 子不語怪。力。
亂。神 ( Analects 7.20). The period of disunion that followed the Han dynasty, however, saw the rise of the “bizarre accounts” that focused exclusively on these forbidden topics. It was during this time
that the connotation of the term “wide-ranging study” shifted and
began to indicate topics of inquiry beyond the canon. 70 This connotation persisted into the Tang, when we find no fewer than six
prefaces using the term “wide-ranging” to justify the collection of
noncanonical materials. 71 Meng Qi suggests that his knowledge is more traditional than that of the specialists who collect anecdotes.
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