Search

The article focuses on the "Analects," or Lunyu, by Chinese philosopher Confucius and its contribution to the theory of literature. The author discusses Confucius's thoughts concerning the book of Chinese poems entitled "Shijing" and the book's reference to the terms wen and xue, both said to be ancestors of the term wenxue (literature).

The deployment of weaving/netting metaphors in ancient Chinese socio-political thought has been noted, but the degree to which those metaphors may have prefigured cosmo-political thought in the earliest period has not been explored. This essay traces the crucial role of weaving technology in providing a fertile source for the constitutive image schema nearly ubiquitous in early cosmo-political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on deities and the extrahuman has been relatively sparse in studies on religion in Early China, tending to only incorporate the topic in so much as it matters to other discussions. This paints a picture of religious activity in which the extrahuman is at best passively involved and at worst simply not present. This article illustrates that such understandings are far from accurate and that deities are actually a very common and complex element of the religious practices and activities displayed in pre-Qin (pre-221 BCE) writings by looking at Lesser Deities, specifically shen 神, in the Zuozhuan 左傳 and Guoyu 國語, two texts that display a vast swathe of information of this period. It shows that these texts depict these Lesser Deities in complex ways, constructing identities for them as active agents in socio-political roles with prescribed duties and responsibilities in the religious systems espoused by these texts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In modern history, as far as the theory of "Six Traditional Chinese Classics All Belonging to History Books" is concerned, Chen Fu-chen agrees with Zhang Xue-cheng's viewpoint on its value in "Respect of Classics and Emphasis on History". In addition, Chen makes use of history as a medium to settle the long-time disputes, and thus entitles history to "ethical right". He replaces classics with history and makes classics play the role of ethical education. This kind of generalization of the theory of "Six Traditional Chinese Classics All Belonging to History Books" helps not only to retain the traditional culture, but also to enrich the "New History" movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to Zhuangzi 莊子 literature, people never forget to mention its poetic, humorous, and appealing features. When Zhuangzi describes a scene, it is poetic and scenic. His narratives are funny and his comments are admirable. If it is about expressing one’s feelings, his writing is so captivating that it seizes your heart. The rhetoric he uses—such as metaphor, exaggeration, foil, analogy, and layout—is unique and dazzling. Generally speaking, most critics focus on the lyric world of one’s experience to comment on the literary works of Zhuangzi. They talk about his linguistic styles and fictional stories, emphasize the literary trend of a particular historical period, or try restoring and imagining a legendary myth. These perspectives, although more or less related to the categorization of Zhuangzi's works, are not based on genre but on content as the measure of categorization. These ways of discussing the literary characteristics of Zhuangzi literature are simplistic and clumsy. The starting point of this article is a reconsideration of “I.” It presupposes that the unity of “I” is the condition and foundation for a subject to experience this world. If this is the case, then, when “I” is a drifting and undetermined “body-qi subject,” it is not impossible to imagine that this subject, composed of some flexible gatherings, would contain a textual presentation of “goblet words,” which are the opposite of daily language and logic. In this article, the “try and explain” of Zhuangzi literature is a crucial in explicating how Zhuangzi becomes a literary text. This is also an effect resulting from a body-qi subject that is inspired by spiritual recognition and bodily practice. Of this process, the exercises of assimilation and exclusion implicate fundamental meanings and particular philosophical gestures of literary production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As recorded in the Zuozhuan, disagreements arose following the death of Shusun Bao. As Shu Niu did not intend to bury him according to the funeral rites of the State of Lu, he conspired with Shuzhong Dai and fought with Du Xie, the chief servant of Shusun, with regard to which city gate the funerary cart should pass through. There are two keywords, namely xian ... and chao ..., used in their arguments that have attracted numerous and controversial discussions since ancient times. The present article conducts a critical examination of the variety of explanations provided by both Chinese and Japanese scholars. It proposes an approach by combining meaning with syntax, and taking both the narrative and the ritual into consideration. The article argues that xian is an equivalent of si ... (dead) and that xianzhe ... (dead people) collocates with ximen ... western city gate). Also, chao refers to a specific space in front of the kumen ... (court door), the primary gate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cheng Tingzuo was a Mid-Qing scholar of the Yijing 易經 who endorsed a reading of the text based in moral principles. Cheng reflected on the fact that his contemporaries' views of the Yi were often influenced by the historical interpretations found in the commentarial tradition rather than their own readings of the work. As a result of this reflective process, Cheng advanced an interpretation of the Yijing that diverged from the standard Cheng-Zhu position, and he expressed doubts regarding the received methods of explaining the text. Cheng's Yi learning, which was based on the Xicizhuan 繫辭傳 section of the work, can be said to have three characteristics. First, Cheng differed from earlier scholars, who focused on the hexagrams, by emphasizing the trigrams and by using the trigram images (from the upper and lower parts of the hexagrams) to explain the yao lines. Second, Cheng's philosophy of yijian 易簡 stressed the qian and kun trigrams because they represented, respectively, pure yang and pure yin. Third, Cheng did not adopt the concrete material images of the trigrams, but rather utilized the abstract meanings found in their corresponding virtues. Cheng thus not only reassessed the inherited tradition of Yi scholarship, he also called for a return to the actual interpretation of the text itself. His Dayi zeyan 大易擇言 reflects his understanding of earlier Yi learning, while his Yitong 易通 resulted from his decision to return to the classics. Both texts are worthy of our attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Book of Changes, or Yijing, has not only had a central role in the theory and practice of literature in China, but has also had a wider influence on writers in the West. But why has this difficult book been so important to writers? Drawing upon both Chinese and Western literary theory, from Liu Xie to Calvino, this paper explores the possible reasons for the Yijing's astonishing productivity as a ‘literature machine’. Finally, as a machine can only be understood by seeing it in operation, the paper concludes with the generation of three new stories that are themselves derived from the texts and commentaries of the Yijing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Susan Roosevelt Weld has observed that the Houma and Wenxian covenant texts, excavated texts dating to the fifth century bc, can be considered “examples of collective responsibility”. New materials from the Wenxian covenant texts provide further evidence relevant to this issue. In this article I present my analysis of a previously unseen imprecation, “Cause [you] to have no descendants” 俾毋有胄後. I suggest the excavated covenants provide the earliest references found in a legal context to collective punishment, a practice that, while archaic in origin, is generally better known from Qin and later penal codes. I also discuss the scope of the term shì 氏, as it is used in the imprecation, in the context of Mark Lewis's work defining basic social units in the Zhou period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article questions the traditional beliefs that the seven 'inner chapters' constitute the earliest stratum of the Zhuangzi, that they already formed a coherent unit in the Warring States, and that they came from a single hand. After reviewing what is known about the early history of the Zhuangzi text, various arguments that have been made in support of early, coherent inner chapters, are examined. Taking the Shiji portrait of the Zhuangzi as the starting point, it is shown that Sima Qian's description and use of the Zhuangzi already gives us reason to question the importance, or even existence, of the inner chapters in the Western Han. It is then shown that pre-Han and Han references to Zhuang Zhou, and parallels with the Zhuangzi text, do not necessarily even require (or support) the existence of most inner chapters, and certainly give no evidence that they were coherent and had any kind of canonical status. Though this does not constitute proof, it does give us reason to rethink the traditional beliefs about the authorship and structure of the early Zhuangzi text. In closing, the possibility of a Huainan Zhuangzi, and the role Liu An and his court might have played in the compilation of the inner chapters, is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mao Heng's annotation of Shijing (≪ ... ≫) and his commentary on the stylistic device of Xing (...) in particular, has long received wide attention, while little attention was given to Zheng Xuan's acknowledgement and development of Mao's commentary on Xing. Based on Mao's recognition of Xing in Shijing, Zheng developed his own criterion to identify the very stylistic device in this great ancient Chinese classic: some such devices identified by Mao are denied and some ignored or omitted by Mao are added not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. Another contribution made by Zheng is that he promoted Xing from a simple linguistic device to an effective literary device, thus establishing the hermeneutic theory of Xing as an essential literary device created by Shijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a literature review journey of ancient Chinese texts, including Confucius' Analects, Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historians of China, Pan Ku's The History of the Former Han Dynasty, and official historical texts of subsequent dynasties. Confucius is not against the accumulation of wealth as long as it is acquired through moral means. Sima Qian, the greatest Chinese historian, appreciates the contribution of successful private enterprises towards the betterment of economy by its efficient usage of resources and his opinion is strikingly similar to modern economic theories such as F.A. Hakey's ideas on free market economy. Their standpoints are, however, rejected by all later official view which emphasizes 'All land and resources belong to the King.' Starting from Pan Ku' proposal on the classification of social hierarchy, businessmen belong to the bottom stratum of the social ladder. The money-making businessmen of the common people is portrayed as 'immoral' or even 'illegal,' but when the profit goes to the King or when the business is state-owned, it is taken as reasonable and highly acceptable. The Chinese King is the controller of most profitable and important businesses in major industries and mining as well as the distributor of most valuable resources. All official view emphasizes the stability of the state, for then the control of the country can be ensured and the power of the King can be consolidated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression of "Spare Melancholy" is of long standing in Chinese classical poems. The sensitive feeling and light melancholy of the lapse of time, youth and life appeared repeatedly in classical poems due to specific scenes. In Song Dynasty, in virtue of poets' dual mood and complex cultural personality, Song poems which is adapted to express people's slender feeling and tactful thought became prosperous and had disparted with traditional proses and poesy in function. Proses and traditional poesy was used to express the ambition, while in Song poems a great deal of poems expressing melancholy about the past of spring and life time emerged, which formed a particular landscape in the history of literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the history of Chinese classic literature theory, there existed two kinds of view of poetry. One was that the intrinsic character of a poem is rational, political, allegorical and educational. The other was that a poem is emotional essentially. In Han dynasty, the Preface of Poetry said that a poem is a combination of emotion and ration and had realized the importance of emotion in a poem, which approached the intrinsic character of poetry by aesthetic criteria and became a key phases in the course of Chinese poetry towards true conscious state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the Confucian philosophy of Chinese poetry as expressed within the tale of "the Cry of the Osprey." The traditional hermeneutics of Chinese poetry criticism are compared with the analysis of the excavated bamboo manuscript of "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry," from the Warring States era, outlining various methodological challenges in the scholastic and archaeological interpretation of the work.

The article presents an examination into the literary-historical consequences of the discovery of the Chu bamboo slip manuscript of "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry," from the Warring States period. The authorship and transmission history of the manuscript is theorized, attributing the work to Zixia, and the work's implications on the criticism of Chinese literature are discussed.

The article presents a translation of a Warring States-era Chinese manuscript entitled "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry," from its ancient Chinese into modern English. Editorial comments are offered defending various translation and interpretation issues brought forth from the bamboo slip fragments.

The article presents an examination into the word order sequencing found on a Chinese manuscript from the Warring States period entitled "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry." The manuscript translation published by the Shanghai Museum is discussed, outlining its distinctions in the use of the words "Song," "Ya," and "Feng."

The article presents an analysis of the Chinese bamboo slip manuscript fragments of "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry," retitled "Preface to the Poetry," by the author, discussing its physical and thematic connections to the larger manuscripts within the collection. Questions of authorship and thematic re-interpretations of the work are discussed in depth.

The article presents an examination of Chinese manuscripts from the Warring States era pertaining to Confucian poetic philosophy and applies their principles to the examination of the poetry of the era. The work of the Shanghai Museum towards this end is cited and discussed, including several revisions pertaining to translation and poetic criticism.

The article presents an introduction to the June 2008 issue, describing the archaeological discovery of the Chinese manuscript "Confucius's Comments on the Poetry," from the Warring States period.

This paper describes the nature of the Chinese Classics and the inappropriateness of classifying the collection as literature within the Library of Congress Classification scheme. The practical and philosophical reasons for the inadequacy of Library of Congress Classification in comprehending and classifying the Chinese Classics are examined. A call is made to change the current treatment that classifies the Chinese Classics, in "Class PL" (Literature) to "Class B" (Philosophy) along with modifications to relevant schedules and the addition of more sophisticated hierarchies and cross references for accuracy and consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years a series of textbook materials selected from classical Chinese poetry for primary and middle school children have been published in China. Prepared by officially appointed experts and included in the formal language curriculum of the 9-year compulsory education, they have run scores of prints and tens of millions of copies have been sold. This paper attempts to find out and study the objectives of these renewed efforts at poetry reading and appreciation, the contents and the ways in which these classical poems are taught and exploited and the implications that this curriculum development may have for humanities education and general knowledge education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the "Wu-tsang Shan-ching," the first and oldest section of the "Shan-hai ching" (or "Shan Hai Jing"), a piece of classic Chinese mythological literature dating from around the fourth century BCE. The section discussed, whose title is translated as "Classic of the Mountains of the Five Treasuries," describes the mountains of the world. The appearance of mythical animals in the text is discussed, as is their possible significance as omens of the future, the study of which is known as teratoscopy.

The article reports on the order of the Educational Board of Shantung Province to burn the Tasangching, a Chinese Buddhist classics, after the ancient temple located at Yihsin, China was turned into a normal school. The Educational board pointed out that the materials were no longer useful and so they removed the bulky volumes and set it to flame.