A New Account of the Tales of the World

A New Account of the Tales of the World
A New Account of the Tales of the World
Traditional Chinese	世說新語
Simplified Chinese	世说新语
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	shìshuō xīnyǔ
Wade–Giles	Shih-shuo Hsin-yu
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	Sai3syut3 San1jyu5

A New Account of the Tales of the World, also known as Shishuo Xinyu (Chinese: 世說新語^[1]), was compiled and edited by Liu Yiqing (Liu I-ching; Chinese: 劉義慶; 403 – 26 February 444^[2]) during the Liu Song dynasty (420–479) of the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589). It is a historical compilation of anecdotes about Chinese scholars, musicians, and artists during the 2nd-4th centuries.^[3]

Content

The book contains around 1,130 historical anecdotes and character sketches of around 600 literati, musicians and painters who lived in the Han and Wei–Jin periods (2nd-4th centuries). Chapter 19, for instance, has 32 stories about outstanding women. It is thus both a biographical source and a record of colloquial language. The original text of the book was divided into eight volumes of juan (卷 "scroll"), though current editions generally span ten volumes.^[3]^[4]

Reception

While most of the anecdotes and personalities are attested in other sources, traditional Chinese bibliographers did not classify Shishuo Xinyu as history, but as a novel / "minor tales" (小说 xiao shuo), a term that was later used to refer to fiction. Some attribute this to its use of colloquial language as well as how it did not follow the historical conventions of the Twenty-Four Histories. The mixture of literary and vernacular styles set the scene for the later tradition of informal Chinese literature. The 20th-century Chinese novelist Lu Xun spoke highly of the book's aesthetic merits.^[5]^[6]

Translations

The text was fully translated into English in 2002, with the Liang dynasty (502–557) commentary by Liu Xiaobiao (劉孝標), by sinologist Richard B. Mather, in the book titled Shih-shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World.^[5]

Extant versions

Manuscript:

Hand-written fragments from the Tang dynasty (618–907) (唐寫本殘卷)

Woodblock prints:

Dong Fen edition, 1138 (8th year of the Shaoxing reign of the Southern Song); original kept in Japan (南宋紹興八年董弅刊本，原本存於日本)
Edition by Lu You, 1188 (15th year of the Chunxi reign of the Southern Song; 南宋淳熙十五年陸游刻本)
Edition from Hunan, 1189 (16th year of Chunxi) (淳熙十六年湘中刻本)^[7]

References and notes

^ While the name of this work is sometimes shortened to Shiyu, it is not to be confused with Wei Jin Shiyu (魏晋世語), another work whose name is sometimes shortened to Shiyu as well.
^ ([元嘉二十一年正月]戊午，卫将军临川王义庆薨。) Song Shu, vol.05. ([元嘉]二十一年，薨於京邑，时年四十二。) Song Shu, vol.51
^ ^a ^b Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series New Edition; Second, Revised printing March 2013, ISBN 9780674067158), p. 732.
^ NJ Museum Archived October 9, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
^ ^a ^b Yiqing Liu, Jun Liu and Richard B. Mather. A New Account of Tales of the World (Shih-Shuo Hsin-Yü). (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, 2002). ISBN 089264155X.
^ Shitong; see Liu Zhiji
^ 中国哲学书电子化计划 (Chinese Philosophy Digitalization Project)