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Da Xiao Ya Tang Shiji: The Poetry Collection of Chengling

English editorial translation of the Chinese source entry

Da Xiao Ya Tang shiji is a collection of poems by the Qing writer Chengling, whose courtesy name was Zunsheng and who was associated with Jilin. The collection includes a preface by Xu Fu dated the renchen year of the Guangxu reign, corresponding to 1892. According to that prefac…

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Source-based English editorial manuscript · Historical details subject to final source verification.

Overview

Da Xiao Ya Tang shiji is a collection of poems by the Qing writer Chengling, whose courtesy name was Zunsheng and who was associated with Jilin. The collection includes a preface by Xu Fu dated the renchen year of the Guangxu reign, corresponding to 1892. According to that preface, Chengling's sons arranged the printing of his surviving literary works after his death. The poetry comprises four volumes, while a separate volume of Bingcan ci contains lyrics in the ci genre.

Historical Background

The four components of the poetry collection are Nanqiao ji, Yanshi ji, Libu ji, and Qiannan ji. Their tables of contents list respectively nineteen, sixteen, seventy, and 105 poems, yielding a total of 210. Xu Fu associates the earlier components with Chengling's experience accompanying officials in Chuzhou and later returning to the capital, and the later components with service in Beijing and an appointment connected with Guizhou. Such an arrangement links the poems to successive phases of their author's life without making each poem a transparent documentary record.

Sources and Interpretation

The surviving works include pieces of classical imitation, travel and landscape verse, poetic exchanges, and farewell poems. Xu Fu's assessment emphasizes concerns with public affairs and the wider condition of the realm, but this is the preface writer's literary interpretation, not a conclusion that can automatically be imposed on every work in the collection. The associated Bingcan ci belongs to a different poetic genre and should not be added to the four-volume poem count. Digital transcriptions contain possible character-recognition problems, so exact poem titles and the printing history require comparison with a reliable facsimile.

Sources and Bibliography

  1. Digitized historical text

Links reproduce references supplied with the Chinese editorial manuscript; they do not establish that every individual statement has undergone independent archival verification.