Title

“Remarks on Poetry” and “Original Incidents”: The Relationship between the Liuyi Remarks on Poetry and the “Original Incidents” Texts of the Late Tang and Five Dynasties

Author

Liu Ning

Genre

Article

Pages

327-356

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

original incidents texts, remarks on poetry, unofficial historical biji

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between “original incidents” texts from the late Tang and the Liuyi Remarks on Poetry 六一詩話. The “original incidents” texts discussed here, which include Meng Qi’s 孟啓Benshi shi本事詩, Fan Shu’s范攄 Yunxi youyi雲溪友議, Lu Gui’s 盧瓌 Shuqing ji 抒情集, and Chu Changzi’s處常子 Xu benshi shi 續本事詩 are full of legends, whereas the Liuyi Remarks on Poetry eschews legendary content. The flourishing of “original incidents” texts reflects the popular attitude towards poetry in the late Tang. Although both the Liuyi Remarks on Poetry and “original incidents” texts comment on poetry and record stories about poets, the writing style of the former work, which expresses no interest in legends, is more appropriately traced back to the unofficial historical biji 筆記 of the Tang dynasty. These biji present stories regarding poets and poetry as historical anecdotes, and they lack any hint of legendary subject matter. Through this analysis, this article seeks to provide a better understanding of Ouyang Xiu’s 歐陽修contribution to the creation of the “remarks on poetry” genre in the Song dynasty.