Guyueyuan 古樂苑

Guyueyuan 古樂苑 is an anthology of ancient poetry compiled by Mei Dingzuo 梅鼎祚 (1553-1619). The collection of 52 juan length took Guo Maoqian’s 郭茂倩 collection of yuefu 樂府-style poetry, Yuefu shiji 樂府詩集, as a model, and was compiled as a kind of supplement to Guo’s book, which ends at the late Tang period 唐 (618-907). However, Mei only assembled poetry until the late 6th century. He also made use of a similar anthology, Guyuefu 古樂府 by Zuo Keming 左克明 (mid-14th cent.).

Mei’s collection suffers from two critical shortcomings, namely wrong attributions of authorship, and the inclusion of five-syllable poetry not belonging to the style of yuefu. A third critical point is the lower quality of many pieces, even if they were written by renowned authors like Prince Zhaoming 昭明太子 (Xiao Tong 蕭統, 501-531) or Shen Yue 沈約 (441-513).