Routine Production: Publishing Qianlong’s Poetry Collections

Abstract

Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799, r. 1735-1795) published his imperial poetry collections at regular intervals during his reign. This article reconstructs the gradual process of routinization of these activities through a close reading of the collections’ prefaces and postscripts. Understanding this process helps us to understand the subtlety of the intra-court communications between Qianlong and his officials, which contextualizes how Qianlong’s intent was delivered, received, and actualized in courtly practice. This routinization process also had a certain influence upon Qianlong and his successors, and suggests a possible reason behind Qianlong’s large poetry production. L’empereur Qianlong (1711-1799, r. 1735-1795) a publie regulierement au cours de son regne des collections de ses poemes. Se fondant sur une etude des prefaces et postfaces de ces collections, cet article reconstruit le processus qui a mene progressivement a etablir des procedures routinieres en vue de telles publications. Ce processus nous permet de mieux saisir la complexite des communications au sein de la Cour entre Qianlong et ses hauts fonctionnaires, et de contextualiser les manieres dont les projets de l’empereur etaient exprimes, compris et mis en œuvre au sein de la Cour. Une telle routinisation a en retour influence les pratiques de Qianlong et de ses successeurs, et suggere une raison credible pour la grande abondance de la production poetique de Qianlong.