Mr. Cheng Qianfan brought forward a past event of backward progress

On the afternoon of December 7, 1981, two editors of Jianghai Academic Journal, Xu Zongzong and Cao Peng, came to the home of Cheng Qianfan, a professor at Nanjing University, and put a discussion article on his desk, and also showed the letter written by the author of the article to the magazine. The article is aimed at Shen Zudi's posthumous book "Appreciation of Song Ci", which was compiled by him, and the author of the analysis of Qin Shaoyou's two poems, Yu Zhidan, a seventh-grade student of the Department of Chinese of Central China Normal University, has a different view. Comrade Editor of the "Mass Forum (Series)" (Press: "Jianghai Academic Journal" was renamed "Mass Discussion Series" in 1980, and restored in 1982):

In the process of reading Mr. Cheng Qianfan's compilation of his deceased wife, Mr. Shen Zudi's posthumous book "Appreciation of Song Ci", I benefited a lot. However, there are also doubtful sinuses. For example, Mr. Shen's analysis of Qin Shaoyou's words "Wanghai Tide" (Mei Ying's sparseness) and "Man Tingfang" (Shan Mo Wei Yun) is really debatable. Because of the involvement in other books, it was written into text, that is, the article "Qin Shaoyou Two Words Examination" was sent. However, due to the limitation of academic strength, the argument may not be fair, and the text is crude, if there is any desirable, I hope that the editorial comrades will revise it as appropriate and publish it. If you reject the manuscript, please reply to the letter to correct the fallacy. Contact address: (Omitted).

Sincerely

salute!

Department of Chinese, Central China Normal University

Grade 77 student Yu Zhidan

November 22, 1981

"Appreciation of Song Ci" was compiled by Cheng Qianfan based on Shen Zudi's posthumous manuscript, published by shanghai ancient books publishing house in March 1980, and printed for the second time in October of the following year, with a print run of 250,000 copies. It is recognized as the first of its kind for contemporary classical poetry appreciation, and to this day, it is still one of the best-selling poetry appreciation books.

This classic book, which condensed the painstaking efforts of two classical literature research experts, was unexpectedly discussed by an undergraduate student more than a year after it was published, and how would Cheng Qianfan, who was nearly seventy years old and had just become the first batch of doctoral supervisors in New China (November 30, 1981), face it?

He wrote in his diary for the day:

In the afternoon, Xu Zong and Cao Peng Erjun of the "Jianghai Academic Journal" showed The Seventh Grade Yu Zhidanjun of the Huashi Chinese Department's "Examination of the Two Words of Qin Shaoyou", which refuted Zu Di and said that it was very good.

He was happy.

He immediately forwarded the article to his old friend Tang Guizhang, a professor at Nanjing Normal University and an expert on Song Ci, and wrote in his letter:

Brother Guizhang:

I think this article is well written (the text should be slightly polished), but please review it. Respectfully

Daoan!

Brother Qianfan

December 8

In a letter dated February 6 of the following year, he mentioned the matter to Tang Guizhang again:

Jianghai Academic Journal forwarded a draft, I think it is good, available, still begging for approval. After reading, please sign and see, and send it to Brother Yao Beihua.

Yao Beihuashi was the head of the editorial department of Jianghai Academic Journal (in September of the same year, he became the editor-in-chief). Four days later, he received a letter from Tang Guizhang:

Mr. Beihua:

Mr. Qianfan has already transferred this manuscript, and has reviewed, checked, and revised it. Available, i.e. sent.

And praise

Write ann!

Tang Guizhang

February 10

Yao Beihua was a man of heart, and he collected this group of letters and wrote a note. According to his records, Donald, who was more than eighty years old, personally changed eight or nine places in the original manuscript. The article was finally published in the 5th issue of the Jianghai Academic Journal in 1982, entitled "Qin Shaoyou's Examination of The Sea Tide". As for the two words examined, why only one word was published is unknown. But Yu Zhidan's conclusions on the two words were adopted by Cheng Qianfan.

In November 1983, after the third printing of the "Appreciation of Song Ci", Qin Guan's "Man Ting Fang", there was one more sentence:

In this part and the next part of "Looking at the Tide of the Sea", the date and place of the lyrics determined by Zu Di are wrong, and it has been corrected under the advice of Mr. Yu Zhidan, and I sincerely aim at this to express my gratitude. ——Cheng Qianfan, January 1982

It can be seen from the time of payment that Yu Zhidan's article has not yet been published, and Cheng Qianfan can't wait to revise the manuscript and attach a message to thank Yu Zhidan.

If you smell it, you are happy, and you don't rob people of beauty, which is Cheng Qianfan's consistent practice. In his writings, such "strange" names can often be seen. For example, "Selected Ancient Poems and Present" (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1983 edition) Cao Zhi's "White Horse Chapter" "Left Gu Ling Xianbei" Note: "Left Gu is The East Gu, look east." (Zhang Juejun held up Yang Xiong's "Xie Tao": "Now the great king Zuo Donghai, right canal search, former Panyu, hou jiaotu.") 'Prove that the left is the east, and it is very true. Fan Qin's "Promise Of Love Poems" "The Sun Doesn't Come" Note: "Oh, late. Sun Yue mujun said: 旰 should be the mistake of 旴旴. Dawn, the beginning of the training day. The poem is written from the sun, the middle of the day, and the day and night to the sunset, which is a matter of one day. If it is a sunrise, it becomes two days. According to Sun said, it is preferable. Zhang Jue and Sun Yuemu here were all undergraduates in the department of Chinese of Nanjing University at that time. Cheng Qianfan not only gladly accepted their opinions, but also wrote their names.

For another example, when the student Zhang Hongsheng asked him Du Shi's two sentences, "Green wind folds bamboo shoots, red blooming rain and fat plums", why did spring suddenly appear in the whole summer scene, he could not answer, so the book left a record of "disciples questioning, even unable to answer, very ashamed". (See "Du Shijing Quan Criticism" volume II) and his article "From Tang Wenru's "Qingcao Lake in Longyang County" to see the poet's originality " (contained in "Ancient Poems Kaoso") because of the mistake of following the "Quan Tang Poems", Tang Wenru, a person in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, as a Tang Dynasty person, when he was pointed out by the younger Professor Chen Yongzheng, he also accepted it frankly, and when the paper was published for the second time (in the "Selected Poems of Cheng Qianfan"), he wrote a "Supplement", quoting Chen Yongzheng's point of view, and saying: "Because I did not want to hide the mistakes caused by my lack of reading and seeing and hearing, Readers forgive the fact that there have been no further revisions to articles that have already been published. This frank, sincere, and truth-seeking attitude toward learning is even more valuable.

Although I have read this appendix of the "Appreciation of Song Ci", I have not known who "Mr. Yu Zhidan" is. Until this group of letters saved by Yao Beihua, it was left in the cold stall and found it for me. I felt like I had to write this story.

Yu Zhidan probably didn't expect that an ordinary submission would receive such attention! I wanted to hear his own memories, so I asked Mr. Dai Jianye, who is also a professor at the seventh grade of the Department of Chinese of Central China Normal University and is now a professor at Central China Normal University, about his contact information, but the answer I got was quite surprising:

"Brother Yu Zhidan is a classmate of mine. He was about ten years older than me. Smart, submerged. ”

"I know about it. At that time, Mr. Cheng replied to an undergraduate student, and he appreciated it, and the students in our class respected Mr. Cheng even more. ”

"It's a pity that the day does not take the year off..."

It turned out that yu Zhidan graduated from university three years later, when he was taking a bus tram in Wuhan, he unfortunately died due to a leakage of electricity.

Yu Zhidan's fate is frustrating, but his name will be passed down along with Shen Zudi's "Appreciation of Song Ci". The spirit of backwardness and the modest and prudent style of the elderly scholars also impress us all the time.

P.S.

From the above, it can be seen that Cheng Qianfan revised the book and wrote a supplementary note when the "Appreciation of Song Ci" was printed for the third time in November 1983. Because the Appreciation of Song Ci is very popular with readers and has many editions, when I looked up this appendix, I accidentally found that some of the post-printed versions were based on the first or second print of the Appreciation of Song Ci. In other words, the evidence is the wrong version.

So, is this error serious? Taking the appreciation of "Man Ting Fang" as an example, the last paragraph of the first edition reads as follows:

Zhou Ji's "Selected Words of the Four Houses of Song" says that this song is "to merge the sense of life into eroticism". It's a very sharp observation. Qin Guan served as the "Huang Ben School Surveyor" in the secret cabinet, which was a lowly official and lowly job, and he was not happy. Politically, he had close relations with Su Shi and belonged to the old party. In the first year of The First Year of Emperor Zhezong's reign (1094 AD), the New Party regained power and the old Party all fell. Qin Guan was also transferred to Hangzhou at this time. This poem may have been written at this time. But about the "sense of life", he only used the two sentences of "how many Penglai old things" to lightly and lightly mention, not especially because the theme of this song is to say goodbye to the lover, and that "Huang Ben School Survey" really has nothing to be nostalgic about, compared to the people who have donated money, it is simply incomparable, so he rewrites the frustration of the love scene and only vaguely includes the frustration of the official field. However, "the high city looks at the judgment" and consciously "hurts" may not be without the meaning of Li Bai's "Dengjinling Phoenix Platform" that "always floating clouds can cover the sun, and Chang'an does not see to make people sad". This is the meaning of Zhou Ji's comment.

And the revised version, it goes like this:

Zhou Ji's "Selected Words of the Four Houses of Song" says that this song is "to merge the sense of life into eroticism". This is very keen observation. This word is used in the late autumn of the second year of Yuan Feng (1079 AD), when the author was leaving the meeting. He was thirty-one years old. The year before, he came to the meeting as a guest because of the "tribute to the countryside and not for sale". In the book sword drift zero, he and Mingshu fall in love, spinning and carrying. The frustration of the famous field and the love field is similar in situation. But the frustration in the name of merit is only faintly revealed through the frustration of love. Zhou Jizhi's comments illustrate the characteristics of its conception.

In contrast, it's obvious. As Cheng Qianfan said in his appendix, the "age and place of the lyrics are wrong" in the first edition, so the emotions in his words are different. This is of course important for us to understand the word.

So I consulted the main editions of "Appreciation of Song Ci" and found that the Hebei Education Publishing House's "The Complete Works of Shen Zudi", the Zhonghua Bookstore edition, and the Shaanxi Normal University's "Cheng Shen Speaking Poems" edition were revised editions; while the Beijing Publishing House's "Little Books for Everyone" and the Wuhan University Press's "Wuhan University Centennial Classics" ("Tang Dynasty Seven Absolute Poems" and "Appreciation of Song Ci" combined editions) were unrefined editions.

Coincidentally. The above-mentioned Cheng Qianfan's article "The Poet's Originality from Tang Wenru's "Qingcao Lake in Longyang County" was originally published in "Ancient Poetry Khao Suo" (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1984 edition), because Chen Yongzheng pointed out the error, Cheng Qianfan wrote the "Supplement" when he published the "Selected Poems of Cheng Qianfan" (Shanxi People's Publishing House) in 1990. Since then, this article has been collected in the Anthology of Cheng Qianfan (Liaoning Ancient Books Publishing House, 1996 edition) and the Complete Works of Cheng Qianfan (Hebei Education Publishing House, 2000), all based on those published after 1990. However, the Commercial Press's "Series of Modern Chinese Academic Masterpieces" "Tang Dynasty Jinshi Xing Scrolls and Literary Ancient Poems Kaoso" is based on the first edition of typography, so there is no "Supplement". Obviously, without the Supplement, this article would be incomplete. As the most popular version of "Ancient Poetry Kauso" at present, this has to be said to be a pity.

In his book "Outline of Philology", Mr. Du Zexun also gave an example in order to illustrate the importance of philology: Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House photocopied Zhang Xinyi's "Examination of Pseudo-Books" in 1998, and the base copy was the 1939 Commercial Press typeset. However, when the book was published in the 3rd edition in 1957, the author made a major revision to make the content richer and more complete. Obviously, the publisher should reprint it according to the revised version. It can be seen that the version is not as early as possible, but should be judged according to the content.

This is an illuminating story for both publishers and readers. Reading books needs to pay attention to editions, and printed books should also choose the good and follow them.