An Introductory Study of the Tang yulin (Forest of Conversations on the Tang): Textual History, Source Material, and the Influences It Received

The Tang yulin 唐語林, a Song dynasty collection of anecdotes about the Tang, remains an understudied text. This article offers an introductory discussion of three issues fundamental to the study of the collection. It first analyzes the textual history and various editions of the Tang yulin; it then presents significant aspects of the collection's selective use of source material; and finally it discusses possible influences on the structural framework of the text. The article shows that the Guoshi bu 國史補, as the main source text of the Tang yulin, presents a way of constructing an anecdotal image of the Tang that is similar to the Tang yulin. In terms of structure and the construction of an anecdotal cultural image of the Tang, the Tang yulin represents a return to the original categorization scheme of the Shishuo xinyu 世說新語. In expanding on that original structure by adding new categories, the Tang yulin was simultaneously influenced by the Da Tang xinyu 大唐新語, the Xu shishuo 續世說, and the Northern Song intellectual tradition of encyclopedic compilations.