Abstract
Sophia Kidd, from Sichuan University, discusses in this chapter physical and cultural geographies in ** (晋) dynasty GUO Pu’s “River Fu.” Examples of as she notes, GUO Pu (郭璞, 276–324 CE) is one of the most erudite writers, scholars, diviners, and geomancers known to the Chinese canon. His lifelong comprehensive studies in Confucian and Daoist classics gave him a working knowledge of how various regions of China contributed to new Eastern ** dynasty cultural narrative and linguistic tradition. This chapter also explores the efficacy of studying a geographical dimensions in GUO Pu’s “River Fu” (江赋) in light of comparative Chinese and Western literary geographies. Looking at this fu as an example of literary cartography, we examine the author’s choices of cultural tropes as he narrates the flow of the Yangzi River from its reputed source in the Min Mountains just east of Tibet all the way eastward to China’s eastern coastline.
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Notes
- 1.
Robert T. Tally Jr., Spatiality (New York: Routledge, 2013), 48.
- 2.
The Chinese genre “fu” (赋) is often translated as “rhapsody,” see David R. Knechtges’, trans. Selections of Refined Literature, Volume II: Rhapsodies on Sacrifices, Hunting, Travel, Sightseeing, Palaces and Halls, Rivers and Seas (New Jersey: Princeton Legacy Library, 1987), 321–351, where Knechtges translates GUO Pu’s “River Fu” as “Rhapsody on the Yangzi River.” Professor Knechtges has long since the publication of this translation turned to no longer translating the term “fu,” but merely leaving it in its pinyin “fu.” I have found in studying the genre that while the fu in its early forms had a strong historical and performative element, such as with the Han dynasty’s epideictic fu, later forms of the fu are less “rhapsodic,” such as in the case of GUO Pu’s short “Well Fu,” written about a particularly deeply dug well near his hometown. I agree with Martin Kern in his Western Han Aesthetics and the Genesis of the “Fu”, Harvard-Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Dec., 2003): 384, where he writes: “With regard to the early performances, Knechtges is fully justified in comparing the fu to the Greek rhapsody; see his The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung (53 BC-AD 18) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 13 and compare Andrew Ford, ‘The Classical Definition of Rhapsōdia,’ Classical Philology, no. 83 (1988): 300–307. However, translating a technical term from ancient Chinese into one from ancient Greece creates its own problems.” GUO Pu’s “River Fu” is close in textual character to the Han Dynasty epideictic fu and was performed for the first emperor Yuan Di of the Eastern **, SIMA Rui. However, I remain consistent in refraining from translating the term fu throughout this chapter, using instead the pinyin of the Chinese term.
- 3.
“Spatialist” is a term I have coined for the growing number of scholars and writers who concentrate upon the production of space in literature and art, as well as those who study this production.
- 4.
[YU **xian, “Discussion on the Differences Chinese and Western Geographical Thought and Special Characteristics of Classical Chinese Geography,” Studies in Yunnan Geographical Environment, vol. 5, no. 1 (1993): 7. (Translation by the author)] - 5.
GUO Pu’s textual production occurred throughout his lifetime, beginning in the Western ** period. Many of his works, however, are difficult to date, thus I follow HU Axiang (胡阿祥) in his published PhD dissertation, Studies in Wei and ** Native Literary Geography (魏晋本土文学地理研究) (Nan**g: Nan**g University Press, 2001), 48. HU’s comprehensive geographical distribution of Wei and ** period writers lists and maps writers according to their places of birth within political boundaries existing in the second year of the Western ** Taikang reign (281 CE). GUO Pu is thus mapped at Wenxi, Hedong (闻喜, 河东) in Sizhou (司州, today Wenxi, Shanxi Province) even though this region no longer belonged to the ** reign by the time GUO Pu published most of his works. This classification of authors according to their hometown and not necessarily according to a site of literary production is presently debated amongst Chinese literary geographers.
- 6.
Cf: 连镇标: 《郭璞研究》, 上海: 三联书店, 2002 年。 [LIAN Zhenbiao, GUO Pu Studies (Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2002).] LIAN Zhenbiao was writing at a time when it was not acceptable within accepted scholarship to state outright that GUO Pu was Taoist or that certain of his works were Taoist in orientation. LIAN, therefore, presents a balanced discussion of GUO Pu’s work in the Changes as well as the “Immortal Lyrics,” suggesting ultimately that GUO Pu was a patriotic Confucian. More recent direct leanings toward GUO Pu’s Taoist or proto-Taoist influence owe much to Lian’s scholarship. See in particular his chapters on “On the Origins of GUO Pu’s Thought on the Changes” (郭璞易学渊源考), “On GUO Pul’s Thought on the Changes” (郭璞易学思想考), and “On GUO Pu’s Divinatory Practices and Religious Taoism” (郭璞易占与道教关系探考) in GUO Pu Studies.
- 7.
赵沛霖: 《郭璞诗赋研究》, 北京: **社会科学出版社, 2015年。 [ZHAO Peilin, GUO Pu’s Poetry and Fu (Bei**g: Chinese Social Sciences Academy Press, 2015).]
- 8.
Compare two versions of LI Shan’s (Tang dynasty) commentary on the “River Fu” in scroll 12 of XIAO Tong’s (萧统, 501–531, Liang dynasty) Selections of Refined Literature (文选), vol. 12 (Bei**g: Zhonghua Book Company, 1977), 83, and (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1986), 557. The Zhonghua Book Company version reads LI Shan’s citation of the Book of ** Restoration (晋中兴书) as “(GUO) Pu in an effort to restore the ** Dynasty, as the emperor was living by the (Yangzi) River, took it upon himself to describe the beauty of the River.” (“璞以中兴, 王宅江外, 乃赋述川渎之美。”) The Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House version reads “emperor was living (王宅)” alternatively as “the three types of officials (三宅)”, which has a similar connotation. Both versions use the Hu ke ben (胡刻本) manuscript, which is Qing Dynasty restoration of the Southern Song version (宋刻本), although the Zhonghua Book Company version does use a photocopied print of the original carving, while the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House prints a re-typeset version, which could explain the discrepancy, although the Sibu congkan **g Song ben (四部丛刊景宋本) version of the Commentary on the Wenxuan by the Six Officials on Selections of Refined Literature (六臣注文选) reads LI Shan as “the three types of officials” as well as Lü **ang (吕向) as saying “The emperor was living (王居),” using the word ju (居) for “living,” rather than “zhai (宅),” illustrating, if nothing else, that this text is not stable. David R. Knechtges follows the Zhonghua Book Company version and translates the entire sentence as “‘because the King of the Restoration (i.e., SIMA Rui, who in 318 established he Eastern ** “Restoration”) took up residence south of the Yangzi,’ GUO Pu wrote this fu ‘to relate the beauty of streams and waterways.” Knechtges’ translation conveys the essential components of this line, while not addressing some of the finer arguments concerning textual disparities between versions of the Selections of Refined Literature circulating today.
- 9.
Original GUO Pu texts used in this paper follow NIE Enyan’s use of Ming Dynasty scholar ZHANG Pu’s (张溥) One Hundred and Three Famous Writers: GUO Pu Hongnong Collection (汉魏六朝白三名家集⋅郭弘农集), see NIE Enyan (聂恩严), GUO Pu Hongnong Collection GUO Pu (郭璞弘农集校注) (Taiyuan: Shanxi People’s Press, 1990). The base version (底本) used by NIE Enyan is an officially produced text from the end of the Ming Dynasty. I, like NIE Enyan before me, have compared this base version with a number of other versions of GUO Pu’s texts, most importantly versions of a large portion of GUO Pu’s texts compiled by YAN Kejun (严可均) in his Complete ** Dynasty Writings (全晋文) (Bei**g: Commercial Printing and Publishing House, 1999), as well as ZHANG Bo’s One Hundred and Three Famous Writers: GUO Hongnong Collection as printed in scroll 56 of the Ji bu (集部) section of the Emperor’s Collection of the Complete Library in Four Sections Qinding (钦定四库全书).
- 10.
English translation based on that by Knechtges, David R. **ao Tong Wenxuan or Selections of Refined Literature, Volume 3: Rhapsodies on Sacrifices, Hunting, Travel, Sightseeing, Palaces and Halls, Rivers and Seas (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987).
- 11.
GUO Pu’s assertion here that the Yangzi River originates at the Min Mountains is largely based on a passage in the Book of Documents (pre-Qin), see Annotations and Commentary on the Book of Documents (尚書注疏) scroll 5 in the Book of **a (夏書) section entitled Tribute to Yu gong (禹 貢), commented and annotated by LU Deming (陸徳明) and KONG Yingda (孔穎達), Annotation and Commentary on the Thirteen Classics (十三经注疏), RUAN Yuan (阮元) (Bei**g: Zhonghua Book Company, 1980). GUO Pu repeats this assertion in both his Annotation of Approaching Elegance, or Erya zhu (尔雅), and Annotation of the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经注). LI Daoyuan (郦道元) in his Annotation of the Classic of Waterways (水经注) affirms this assertion as well. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, a travelogue by XU **ake (徐霞客) alternatively posited the **sha River (金沙江) as the source of the Yangzi, directly contradicting the Spring and Autumn period Tribute to Yu assertion of the Min Mountains as source. At the end of the nineteenth century, then, geographers had discovered that the actual source of the Yangzi River was the Tuotuo River (沱沱河). There is some debate that given GUO Pu’s knowledge of China’s geography, his assertion of the Min Mountains as source to the Yangzi River may have been a narrative affect, meant to give the Yangzi River stronger precedent in China’s cosmological heritage narrative, tracing it back to the legends surrounding the Great Yu. These assertions are mostly unfounded, however, as are assertions that the Classic of Waterways Shui **g (水经) was originally written by GUO Pu.
- 12.
Cf: GUO Pu’s commentary on the Classic of Mountains and Seas, especially its role as mythological geography in China. 袁珂: 《山海经校注》, 北京: 北京联合出版社, 2013 年。 [YUAN Ke. Annotation and Commentary on the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Bei**g: Bei**g United Publishing House, 2013).]
- 13.
Cf: Henri Lefebvre, Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974). As well as Edward Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
- 14.
Parts of this chapter have been reworked from Sophia Kidd, “Geographical Dimensions in GUO Pu’s ‘River Fu’,” Comparative Literature East West (Chengdu: Sichuan University Press, 2016).
[YU **xian, “Discussion on the Differences Chinese and Western Geographical Thought and Special Characteristics of Classical Chinese Geography,” Studies in Yunnan Geographical Environment, vol. 5, no. 1 (1993): 7. (Translation by the author)]Author information
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Kidd, S. (2022). Embedded Geographies in GUO Pu’s “River Fu”. In: Fang, Y., Tally Jr., R.T. (eds) Spatial Literary Studies in China. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03914-0_17
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