The Art of Expurgation: TAN Xian's Ci Collection Revision and the Cultivation of His Ci Technique and Style

Tan Xian, a renowned master of Ci poetry in the late Qing Dynasty, devoted his life to the composition and revision of Ci. From the seventh year of the Xianfeng reign (1857) to the twenty-first year of the Guangxu reign (1895), his works were compiled into collections on at least five occasions. By comparing the titles and quantities of Ci poems across these different editions, it is possible to reconstruct the comprehensive process through which he refined his works and established his definitive late-life collection. Furthermore, by examining the draft versions of Ci poems recorded in his manuscript Futang Diary and the numerous variant readings he left behind, it becomes evident that Tan Xian employed strategies such as deleting, replacing, or reimagining titles and prefaces to obscure the trajectory of his early apprenticeship in Ci composition, dilute the contextual background of his works, and erase traces of their occasional or social functions. Simultaneously, he leveraged the physical medium and textual space of his manuscript diary to repeatedly revise and polish the content of his daily Ci compositions, aiming to create idealized and standardized literary texts. This prolonged process of refinement and modification not only directly reflects Tan Xian's self-reflection and adjustments in his practice of Ci composition, but also implies a shift in his conceptual understanding of Ci poetry, through which he continuously corrected and reshaped his individual poetic style.