Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍

The Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍 "The Mind of Literature and Carving Dragons" is a literay critique written by the Liang period 梁 (502-557) scholar Liu Xie 劉勰 (d. 522). Liu lived in a time when the literary production and literary theory acheived a first apogee.
The Wenxin diaolong is divided into 10 juan "scrolls" and 50 chapters. The first five chapters are a kind of general outline of literary theory. All literary writings have to be based on the background of a certain dao 道 "way" and have to go back to the literary examples of the glorious past. In the following part (chapters 6-25) Liu Xie describes the development of the various literary styles. The chapters dealing with poetry are of great importance (chapters Mingshi 明詩, Yuefu 樂府 and Quanfu 銓賦). Yet historiography (Shizhuan 史傳), "masters" (Zhuzi 諸子) and treatises (Lunshuo 論說) are also described in detail. In the subsequent part (chapters 26-26) the technique of compiling a literary work is dealt with. They are important for conosseurship and literay critique.
The aspect of literary philosophy plays an important part for the position of literary works in the humans world and in cosm. A successful author has to know about the natural "way" and its spirit (shen 神). His works integrate a natural innateness of the world order and therefore are an ideal object for study and for education. Such a spirit can be found in the Confucian Classics. The author has to go back to the "way" of nature (Yuandao 原道), he has to take the classics as his prototype (Zongjing 宗經), and he has to follow the Saints of antiquity (Zhengsheng 徵聖). All different genres of literature are "branches" of the Classics. Yet when Liu Xie concretely describes the techniques of composition he leaves this abstract level and provides concrete statements about how to rate literary works, the special aspects of each genre and the rules for these. He advocates a simple and genuine style and suggests that a good author has his own particular style. The evolution of different literary genres, but also the general development of literature follows, as Liu Xie states, the political and social conditions of the time. Change and adaption are therefore an inevitable process (Tongbian 通變). The course of such a process can also be influenced by authors and their inventions. Changes, nevertheless, can not be so great that literature can not any more understood by contemporarians. Individual excesses in content, meaning and the form are thus not allowed but an author has to balance between invention or process on the one side and tradition or a common sense on the other.
For a successful composition it is important to discern between subjective feelings and objective criteria. This was already known in earlier times. The "Grand Preface" (Daxu 大序) to the Shijing 詩經 "Book of Songs", for instance, talks of feelings stirred up in the heart that are to be expressed by words. Cao Pi 曹丕 had already mentioned the natural qualities of a writer in his book Dianlun 典論 (only the chapter Lunwen 論文 has survived), and Lu Ji 陸機 had talked about the literary imagination in his book Wenfu 文賦 (lost), but Liu Xie was the first who discussed the art of writing in detail. Literature, in his eyes, had to achieve the same beauty as coloured clouds or blossoming flowers. Adornments are not only an outer appearance but contribute to the naturalness of the work. Any author has to bring with him a natural inclination and talent to write that has to be fostered through practicising and study. The subjective feelings have to be paired with an objective scenery or condition which mutually influence and support each other. The admiration of natural beauty like a landscape or the sea reflects the inner feelings, like the author's emotions find themselves in the surrounding nature. Things and objects of the outer world described in the poem reflect the inner self. Literature is born out of the heart, and it is not possible that feelings are produced for literature. Shape and style of a literary work are accordingly also formed by the emotional intention of the author.
All literary writings can have eight different characters which consists of four pairs of opposites, namely elegant and exceptional, obscure and clear, complicated and frugal, and robust and light. These pairs of opposites can pass over to each other, so that a work does not necessarily have to stick to one character. A literary writings has to possess both "spirit" (feng 風) expressing thoughts and feelings and also a clear, fresh and vigorous structure (gu 骨). Literary imagination does not have to be too abstract or obscure but has to refer to examples from daily life that every reader might be able to experience or at least to picture himself. The mind of author and reader has to wander slowly but constantly to the envisaged target, it does not have to leave the concrete world and common senses.
The chapter Zhiyin 知音 is one of the oldest writings of literary critique. It explains the conduct of critique, the creation of an objective standpoint, and which points a critic has to observe. Some of Liu Xie's arguments come from the side of the Confucian Classics, but most of his points are more incisive than pure formal criteria. The critic, he says, has to gain an overall picture of the genre in general and of the poem he deals with specifically. A poem or a literary work to be criticized has to be regarded in all its aspects, from content to expression and the formal shape. Otherwise a critic would "look towards the east and not see the western walls" (Liqi 程器). A critic has to study a lot of literature before being able to make any serious comment, he has "to read a thousand poems and to examine one thousand swords in order to become an expert". Some later scholars criticized Liu Xie with the argument that he himself did have a biased view towards the poems of Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 whom he does not even mention.
The Wenxin diaolong is very strong in its description of the various literary genres and their historical development. It continues the first efforts to categorize literature by Cao Pi, Lu Ji, Zhi Yu 摯虞 (Wenzhang liubie lun 文章流别論) and Li Chong 李充 (Hanlinlun 翰林論). Except of a small fragment of Cao Pi's Dianlun, the other early critiques are lost. The Wenxin diaolong is therefore also the oldest book describing the various genres of belles-lettres.
The oldest extant version of the Wenxin diaolong is a manuscript fragment dating from the Tang period 唐 (618-907). It is preserved in the Beijing Library 北京圖書館. The oldest print was made during the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368) which was reproduced by the Shanghai guji press 上海古籍出版社. The reprint series Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 contains a reproduction of a Ming period print. The most common versions are that of the Qing period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Huang Shulin 黄叔琳, Fan Wenlan's 范文瀾 Wenxin diaolong zhu 文心雕龍注 (Renmin wenxue press 人民文學出版社 1958), Yang Mingzhao's 楊明照 Wenxin diaolong jiaozhu 文心雕龍校注, Zhou Zhenfu's 周振甫 Wenxin diaolong zhushi 文心雕龍注釋 and Wang Liqi's 王利器 Wenxin diaolong jiaozheng 文心雕龍校證.
There is a translation by Vincent Yu-chung Shih (1959), The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: A Study of Thought and Pattern in Chinese Literature, New York: Columbia University Press.

The 34 different literary genres of the Wenxin diaolong are:

1. 騷 sao elegic poetry of the South
2. 詩 shi lyric poetry
3. 樂府 yuefu songs of the Han Music bureau
4. 賦 fu rhapsody
5. 頌 song odes
6. 贊 zan appraisals
7. 祝 zhu sacrificial prayer
8. 盟 meng oathes of agreement
9. 銘 ming inscriptions
10. 箴 zhen exhortations
11. 誄 lei dirges
12. 碑 bei epitaphs
13. 哀 ai laments
14. 吊 diao commemorations
15. 雜文 zawen miscellaneous writings
16. 諧 xie humors
17. 隱 yin enigmas
18. 史傳 shizhuan historical writings
19. 諸子 zhuzi speculative writings of the Masters
20. 論 lun treatieses
21. 說 shuo discussions
22. 詔 zhao edicts
23. 策 ce scripts
24. 檄 xi war proclamations
25. 移 yi dispatches
26. 封禪 fengshan Sacrifices to Heaven and Earth
27. 章 zhang memoranda
28. 表 biao memorials
29. 奏 zou presentations
30. 啟 qi "opening" communications
31. 議 yi discussions
32. 對 dui responses
33. 書 shu letters
34. 記 ji notes