CH251: CHINESE LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION
Winter, 2002

Room: Derby Hall 29
Time: M-Th 12:30
Instructor: Kirk A. Denton / 392 Cunz Hall / 292-5548 (Office)
e-mail:denton.2@osu.edu
course web-page: http://deall.ohio-state.edu/denton.2/c251.htm
Office hours: M/W 2:30-3:30

This course aims to familiarize the student with certain highlights of traditional Chinese literature from the Chou dynasty (11th century to 221 B.C.) to the Sung (960-1279). While much of class time will be taken up with the examination of the origin and development of Chinese poetry, attention will also be paid to historical and fictional writings. The ground to be covered is too vast to do so with great depth, but it is hoped that the student emerge from this course with a sensibility to the literary texts of a society that is for some students culturally alien and to all students historically alien to his/her own. Writing poems and essays in the style of the Chinese masters we study is one way the student will attempt to enter into this alien culture. Students need not have prior knowledge of China, Chinese culture, or the reading of literary texts. Those students with knowledge of the Chinese language are welcome to take the course but should be wary that this is a Chinese literature course "in translation" and that reading Chinese literature in the original and in English translation are two very different activities.

Lectures will of course be used to provide the necessary background and to set the stage for intelligent discussion. The student is expected to think about what is read, and to interject opinions at any time. Merely spewing back what the instructor has said will not be enough: original ideas, expressed in writing assignments and in class, will always be given a greater value than unreflective parroting. I provide a skeletel outline to the course online. This is just a chronological guide and NOT, I stress, everything you need to know for the class.

(1) Reading assignments (given in the schedule below). It is in the student's own interest to do them faithfully. Coming to class unprepared is a waste of everybody's time, especially your own.

(2) Five creative writing assignments. You will be asked at certain points in the course to write short poems or stories following the style of a certain form or in imitation of a certain poet or writer. In these assignments, you are free, indeed encouraged, to draw from what you know for the content. Click assignments for detailed description of all five writing assignments.

* Assignment #1. Feng-style poem
* Assignment #2. Historical narrative in the style of Ssu-ma Ch'ien
* Assignment #3. Philosophical parable in the style of Chuang-tzu
* Assignment #4. Quatrain in the style of Wang Wei
* Assignment #5. Lyric meter poem written to popular tune. For this assignment, you might find some of the many "lyrics" websites to be quite useful. For this assignment, students may publically perform their lyrics on the last day of class.

(3) A midterm and final exams.

The midterm and final are composed of two sections. The first section is Identifications. You will be given a list of items that you must describe. These items may include authors, texts, cultural terms, key historical figures, etc. In writing your answers please be sure to give basic factual information first and then proceed to discuss other characteristics. For example, if I list a literary text, you would first indicate who wrote it, when it was written, what kind of text it is, etc. Then, you should get into a little more detail, describing the nature of that text, its literary characteristics, etc. The key to doing these identifications well is determining what information is important or relevant; hence, what information to include. In the second section of your exams, you will be given passages from texts we have read for class and discussed in class. You might find here an entire poem, if it is short enough, or a passage from a larger text. I will then ask you specific questions tailored to that passage. For example, who wrote it? where does the passage come from? what kind of text is it? what is it saying? etc.

On the whole, the midterm will cover material treated in the first half of the course, while the final will cover material treated in the second half.

Grades will be determined as follows:

5 short papers................ 50% (10% each)
Midterm......................... 25%
Final ...............................25

There will be no curve. As a general rule, an overall grade of 90% or better is required for an A, 80-90 for a B, and so on.

Purchase the following at SBX:

(1) Cyril Birch, ed. Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (hereafter, Birch)

(2) Burton Watson. Early Chinese Literature (hereafter, Watson)

(3) Burton Watson, trs. Chuang-tzu: Basic Writings

Purchase the following at COPEZ (Neil Avenue):

(4) Denton. Supplementary Materials for Chinese 251

(5) Dynastic Chart

Outline to Course Lectures

1/7 Orientation
1/8 The Book of Odes [Readings: Watson, 199-230; Birch, 3-29]
1/9 " "
1/10 " "

1/14 " "
1/15 " "
1/16 " "
1/17 The Elegies of Ch'u [Readings: Watson, 231-254; Birch, 49-80]

1/21 NO CLASSES (MLK DAY)
1/22 " " ASSIGNMENT #1 DUE
1/23 Historical writings [Readings: Watson 19-120; Birch 32-33, 93-133]
1/24 " "

1/28 " "
1/29 " "
1/30 " "
1/31 " "

2/4 Age of Dissolution[Readings: Birch 162-8, 182-88; Chuang Tzu, all]
2/5 " " ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE
2/6 " "
2/7 MIDTERM

2/11 " "
2/12 " "
2/13 " "
2/14 T'ang poetry [Readings: Birch, 217-241]

2/18 " "
2/19 " " ASSIGNMENT #3 DUE
2/20 " "
2/21 " "

2/25 " "
2/26 " "
2/27 " "
2/28 " "

3/4 " "
3/5 T'ang Short Stories [Readings: Birch, 288-322]
3/6 " " ASSIGNMENT #4 DUE
3/7 " "

3/11 Sung lyric meters [Readings: Birch, 333-363]
3/12 " "
3/13 " "
3/14 " "
3/15 Performance Day Assignment #5 DUE