Zhu Yizun

Life

Zhu Yizun was a great-grandson of the Ming Grand Tutor Zhu Guozuo; his father was Zhu Maoshu, his younger brother was Zhu Yijian (also written with the variant form 朱彝鑒), and his wife was Feng Fuzhen. In his youth, the fall of the Ming deeply affected him and he aspired to restoration; he later travelled widely, and his reputation grew. In 1679, the eighteenth year of the Kangxi reign, he sat for the Boxue hongci examination, ranked seventeenth in the first class, and was appointed a Compiler in the Hanlin Academy. He took part in compiling the History of the Ming and offered many suggestions on its institutional form. At the beginning of his Hanlin career, he was summoned to serve in the Southern Study, but was soon dismissed after being slandered; he did not attach importance to office. He was a friend of Qu Dajun, Xu Qianxue, Li Liangnian, and Gu Yanwu.

Scholarship and literary work

His learning encompassed poetry, prose, ci poetry, classical studies, and evidential research, and he was broadly versed in the Classics and histories. An antiquarian by inclination, he investigated everything from the Classics and histories, the masters and belles-lettres, and inscriptions and stone texts to bamboo, wood, insects, and fish. His poetry was ranked with Wang Shizhen’s, and together they were known as the two great poetic patriarchs of north and south, “Southern Zhu and Northern Wang”; in ci, he and Chen Weisong were known as “Zhu and Chen.” He is credited with founding the Western Zhejiang ci school; skilled in epigraphy, he avidly collected books and became one of the early Qing’s renowned collectors. He once made ci lyrics from Tang poems under the title *Fan jin* (also catalogued as *Fan jin ji*), while his poetry collection disregarded the Tang–Song division and included all forms. He also wrote 《聞鶴樓成賦寄楚中一二知己》, expressing delight at the Yellow Crane Tower and its “spectacle, now before the eyes after a hundred years.”

Works

His extensive writings include *Pushu ting ji* (《曝書亭集》), *Jingyi kao* (《經義考》), *Rixia jiuwen* (《日下舊聞》), *Ming shi zong* (《明詩綜》), *Ci zong* (《詞綜》), and *Jingzhiju shihua* (《靜志居詩話》). *Ming shi zong* also appears as *Shi zong*, and *Ci zong* is regarded as an important anthology in Chinese ci studies. *Jingyi kao* is recorded in 300 juan, *Ming shi zong* in 100, *Ci zong* in 34, and *Jingzhiju shihua* in 24; other works include *Pushu ting ci*, *Jianghu zaijiu ji*, and *Zhucha wenlei*.