Abstract The Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty includes verses by more than 4,950 authors, among whom 3,106 are identified by place of birth. According to provincial distribution, southern authors are concentrated in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and the neighboring provinces of Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Anhui, while those from the north are centralized in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Yuan Secretariat, mainly Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, and Hebei. Among them all, the greater proportion of authors are from the south. Specifically, Zhejiang authors rank the first among all provinces, followed by provinces represented by more than one-hundred authors: Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Fujian, Shandong, and Shanxi. A similar distribution pattern is discernible in the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, but with some differences. Zhejiang ranks the first, with more than twice the number of writers of Jiangxi. This shows that during the Yuan period, Zhejiang, as the political and economic center and transportation hub of the Jiangnan region maintained, and even developed, its status as the national center of poetry since the Southern Song Dynasty. Because of its strong Neo-Confucian tradition, Jiangxi was more heavily influenced by the ancient prose tradition that began in the Song, which in turn inspired the literati in Jiangxi to be more passionate about social and practical matters in their proses than in individual poems. This trend contributed to the great accomplishments in prose writing during the Yuan. Changes are even more apparent from the geographical distribution of author origin. Although the main distribution of author origin in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty is also roughly the same as that of the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, which is mainly areas under the jurisdiction of the Yuan Secretariat and Lin'an (Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song), two differences are clearly apparent. The first is the obvious decrease of northern authors and the increase of southern authors in the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, and the corresponding rise of southern authors are mainly centralized in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, whose jurisdiction included Jiangnan, most of Jiangsu, part of Anhui and Jiangxi, and all of Zhejiang, Fujian, and modern Shanghai. The second is the rank of specific prefectures and counties. Among the authors in the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, Qiantang in Zhejiang (Hangzhou) ranks first with obvious advantages, while in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty Suzhou ranks the first. Xuancheng in Anhui, which ranks after more than one hundred other author-origin locations in the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, is ahead of Qiantang and ranks the second. The increase of poets' representation of Suzhou and Xuancheng in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty is due to historical background and humanistic reasons. Moreover, in terms of the distribution of poets from Zhejiang in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty, those from the Taizhou, Shaoxing and Hangzhou circuits rank as the top three. Among prefectures and counties, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Tiantai, Huangyan, Yinxian, Yongjia, and Jiaxing serve as the main distribution points. Compared with Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, although the number of writers in eastern Zhejiang is still more than that in western Zhejiang, the gap has narrowed. Moreover, the Wuzhou and Qingyuan circuits have dropped significantly in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty, indicating that in traditional, regional culture, prose writing is more highly valued than poetic composition. Through an analysis of the geographical distribution of authors in the Complete Poems of Yuan Dynasty and a comparison with the Complete Prose of Yuan Dynasty, not only can we get a clear and accurate understanding of the geographical distribution of poets in the Yuan Dynasty, but can also gain a more comprehensive and subtle understanding of the overall development of poetry and prose in the Yuan Dynasty from a regional perspective.
|