CHINESE LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION
COURSE OUTLINE
Prepared for Chinese 251 at The Ohio State University

A. General remarks about Chinese civilization

B. Mythical Past

1. Absence of central creation myth

2. Mythical golden age

• Yellow Emperor; Yao and Shun: mythical sage kings Yao and Shun who ruled with benevolence and justice

3. Hsia Dynasty (2300-1800 BC) [dynastic chart]

• archaelogical evidence shows existence of village society dating back to 4,000 BC; these societies were quite developed and even carved exquisite jade; but shows no signs of a Hsia dynasty

C. Early Primitive Culture (Shang 1766-1122 BC)

1. Shaman culture/ancestor worship

2. hunting/agricultural society

3. bronzes

4. Oracle bone script; ancients Chinese scripts

D. "Feudal" period (Chou 1122-249 BC) [map of Chou]

1. Mandate of Heaven

2. Chou feudalism

• initially stable, then gradually breaking down


3. great philosophical ferment in the late Chou

• Confucius [image of Confucius], Mencius, Chuang-tzu, Lao-tzu, Mo-tzu, etc. all live during this period


4. Confucianism

• social/moral/political philosophy emerged in response to chaos
• faith in the essential goodness of man
• li as central Confucian concept is the glue which binds society together by prescribing social behavior in human relationships
• five relationships: ruler/subject; father/son; elder brother/younger; husband/wife; friends)
• filial piety and heirarchy
• rule by virtue
• central Confucian texts: The Analects and Mencius [more translations of Confucian texts]

A. Narrative vs. lyrical poetry

B. Introduction to Book of Odes (also known as Book of Songs, Book of Poetry; Classic of Songs...)

1. Origins (Mark Asselin, "Shijing, or Book of Songs: General Information")

• collections of 305 poems + 6 without titles
• most existed prior to their compilation in mid-Chou as popular folk songs, or songs sung at ritual occasions in the Chou court
• date from the early part of the Chou (10th c.BC) to 7th c, the Sung poems being the oldest
• according to one view, they were collected by officials of the Chou court to gauge the mood of the people
• another view has it that they were compiled by Confucius (5th c. BC),
• but likely compiled earlier

2. centrality to Chou culture

3. canonical status (ching)

• one of Five Classics: Classic of Documents (or History); Book of Changes (and the 64 Hexagrams); Spring and Autumn Annals; Book of Rites

4. Mao edition (from the Han)

• allegorical readings of the poems

C. Guofeng (or Airs of the States) section (160 poems)

1. General remarks

• suborganized into the feng poems from the individual states in the feudal system of the Chou
• the term feng may mean "folk customs", "satire", best translated as "airs"
• themes: love, courtship, joys and sorrows of daily life; accounts of outings and festivals; focus on the daily lives of the common people, their occupations, work, hunting, games, dances; some are explicitly political

2. Typical Feng poem "Fair, Fair cry the osprey" (HANDOUT)

• poetic features
• structure
• interpretation

3. Readings of other feng poems

• "Plop fall the plum" (7)
• "Mid the bind grass on the plain" (8)
• "Cypress boat" (21)
• "Rabbit goes soft-foot" (22)
• "At the great gate to the East" (15)
• "Bamboo pole" (17)

4. summary of Feng poems

• short; 2-4 stanzas/ 4 lines each/ 4 syllable lines
• natural imagery/human emotion
• repetition (shows oral, sung roots)
• rhyme
• point of view is (male or female)
• often deal with commoners and their loves and desires

D. Lesser Ya (elegant, refined) Section (70 poems)

• written by, for and about the court aristocracy; by professional bards or poets
• others were songs sung at court rituals
• longer than the Feng poems
• clear political meaning: some in praise of the court, some critical
• "Yellow, withered all flowers" (11)
• "Salt lick" (12)

E.Greater Ya (30)

• in some sense very similar to the Lesser Ya, though they have a different tone
• more public or of national concern
• some have an epic-mythical feel to them (ie. poems about the founding of the Chou court)
• deal with government affairs, affairs of the ruling house
• "Hou Chi" (5)

F. Sung (hymns) (39 poems)

• songs in praise of the court, king,
• often no rhyme, reflecting the chanted nature in court ritual (sung poems usually rhyme)
• Watson calls these propaganda poems for the Chou court
• "So they appeared..." (28)

A. Chou feudalism disintegrates

B. State of Ch'u

1. emergence of Ch'u [map of Ch'u]

• but over the course of the 6th-4th c. a new state emerged in the south to contend with the six northern states
• distant and removed from the Chou court
• in the central part of China around the Yangtse River region, far south of the Chou capital on the Yellow River

2. Ch'u climate and culture

• land of lakes, rivers, mountains; diverse plants and vegetation [photo of Three Gorges area]
• river and mountain goddesses
• Shamanism

C. Brief Biography of Ch'u Yuan (343-278 BC)

• problem of fact and legend
• born into an aristocratic family; took up statesman career as a diplomat for King Huai of Ch'u, who respected his learning and discernment
• banished from Ch'u twice for political mistakes
• after second banishment, he wanders; with a very strong sense of being wronged in his dismissal; he writes a poem "Encountering Sorrow" to vent his grief and sense of moral indignation; he then commits suicide
• Dragon Boat Festival (or Duanwu jie)
• Confucian cult of Ch'u Yuan

D. Elegies of Ch'u

1. composition

• collection of 17 mostly long, narrative poems compiled (in the earliest edition by Wang Yi of the Han), but thought to be of earlier origin
• half are (according to Wang Yi) written by Ch'u Yuan himself; the other half are Han imitations of Ch'u's style
• current scholarship says that some of the half attributed to Ch'u were actually by him, others were not

2. shamanistic origin of poems

• some are transcriptions of invocations, or chants, used by shamans in their religious ceremonies; in other words, copies of things that were chanted or recited at a shamanistic ceremony
• some accompany the Shaman's spirit journey: in which the shaman puts self in the psychological state in which his spirit leaves his body and soars to the cosmos and communes with gods and goddesses, or searches for them

3. Allegorical readings

• represses the religious and sexual dimensions in favor of political readings

E. "Encountering Sorrow"

1.intro

• by far the most important and widely known poem in the collection
• considered to be by Ch'u Yuan; the first poem whose authorship we are fairly sure of; all the Odes we do not know who wrote them or if they were written by individual authors; this begins the more modern notion of an individual author who through some creative vision shaped the poem
• written to lament his fate (banished) and to restore his name

2. formal characteristics

• Sao-meter (tum, tum, tum, te, tum, tum, hsi / tum, tum, tum, te, tum, tum
• narrative poem

3. allegory generally accepted

• spirit journey is an allegory for the search for an ideal ruler

F. Close reading of "Encountering Sorrow"

A. What is History?

• What are Western expectations for History? How have Chinese viewed historical writing?

B. Why look at history in a Chinese literature class?

• little distinction in ancient times between belles lettres, philosophy, history...

C. Centrality of history to China

1. tradition-oriented culture

2. golden-age syndrome

3. society, or human oriented, culture

4. two of 5 Classics are histories

• Spring and Autumn Annals; and Book of Documents

D. Book of Documents

1. textual history

2. organization

• arranged in five parts: Documents of T'ang (the state of T'ang where Yao lived); Yu (Shun's dynastic designation); Hsia; Shang; and Chou
• each section contains documents (speeches, edicts, pronouncements by kings, lords, and political advisors) purported to be authentic

3. Example

• "The Great Declaration"; rails against the Shang as a part of its Mandate of Heaven rationalization

4. concepts of political ideology embodied in this work

• Mandate of Heaven
• rang (yielding)
• importance of rule of virtue

E. Spring and Autumn Annals

1. chronicle of the State of Lu from 722-481 BC.

2. Gave rise to many commentaries

• the most important of which is the Tso Commentary (or Tso-chuan)

3. importance of this text

• seen, like the Bible, to embody all important moral principles

F. Tso Commentary [more selections from the Tso Commentary]

1. dating

• authentic late Chou (Warring States; 3rd c BC) text

2. nature of the text

• longest and most detailed historical text of the Chou
• compiled or composed by one Tso Ch'iu-ming, or Tso-ch'iu Ming, about whom nothing is known
• in the form of a commentary on the Annals, yet it reads well on its own; there is no real one-to-one relationship between the commentary and the text it comments on; it is likely that the Annals "inspired" the writing of the Tso
• mixture of legend, romance and fact
• vivid, realistic style

3. moral vision

• the Tso Commentary avoids complex questions of morality, of why the good fail and the bad succeed; the moral vision of the Tso is very simple, perhaps typical of an ancient society; goodness and virtue are rewarded with success

4. Confucian virtues

• li, or propriety, and other Confucian virtues
• the Tso Commentary imparts the same knowledge of the Book of Rites, but it does so "by showing men in the act of conforming to or violating these rules of behavior" (Watson, 45)
• i.e. WATSON, 46-47; WATSON, 59

5. Use of prophecy

• i.e. WATSON, 58-61 (Duke Wen of Chin)

6. language and style

• uniform style and grammar indicating single authorship
• direct speech and dialogue
• dreams, flasbacks for plot structuring
• WATSON, p.54 for example of style

7. content

• battle scenes and political intrigue
• set didactic pieces (WATSON, p.63)

8. Sample text: "The Death of Duke Ching of Chin" (BIRCH, 32-33)

9. Conclusions

A. Ch'in unification (221-207 BC)

1. Ch'in unifies the feudal states and ruler declares himself emperor of China

• Ch'in emperor's tomb; Museum of the Terra Cotta Warriers and Horses

2. Legalism as Ch'in ideology

3. bringing an end to the vestiges of the feudal system

4. oppression of intellectuals, particularly Confucians

5. contributions of Qin

• unity and centralization
• meritocracy and the centrally controlled bureaucratic state
• Great Wall

B. Han (206 BC. 220 AD) [map of Han]

1. founded by commoner Liu Pang

2. imperial expansion Map of Han China

3. Confucian ideology

4. Cultural contributions

• examination system first developed
• advances in all aspects of technology and culture
• one of the great periods of Chinese history; philosophy, poetry,
• paper innvented for writing
• huge university of over 30,000 students was in the capital in Luoyang

5. dynastic collapse (rise and fall)

A. Authorship

• Ssu-ma T'an (father) and Ssu-ma Ch'ien (son)
• Written under the reign of Emperor Wu (140-87 BC)
• son inherits his father's position as court historian and continues his father's work on this massive project

B. Biography of Ssu-ma Ch'ien

1. sources

• autobiography; Pan Ku's biography; letter to Jen An

2. Early life (145-90 BC)

• father was the court historian/astrologer
• by 10 he could read the classics
• in his early life he travelled all over China
• joined the military and later the gov't
• 110 BC his father was snubbed by the court and not allowed to participate in a court ritual (his normal duties); he died "of bitterness" and resentment
• son took over fathers job, vowed to complete the sacred task assigned to him
• 107-100 he worked on the text

3. 100 BC was the Li Ling affair ("Letter to Jen An"; BIRCH, 95-99)

C. Structure of the Records of the Grand Historian

1. Grand scope

• to include entire knowable past of all periods and all regions (including barbarians, Japanese)
• from Yao and Shun to the present reign of Emperor Wu
• 130 chapters organized into five large sections

2. Basic Annals (pen-chi) (12 chps)

• recounts the biographies and events associated with of the kings and the royal houses

3. Chronological Tables (piao) (10 chps)

• listing of dates, principle events of various states and fiefs; spatially simultaneously

4. Treatises (shu) (8 chps)

• essays on various subjects; music, astronomy, rites, economics, religious affairs

5. Hereditary Houses (shijia) (30 chps)

• histories of the families of high aristocrats; dukes, earls..

6. Biographies (liezhuan) (70 chps)

• biographies of statesmen, generals, philosophers, poets, knights-errant, assasins, court-jesters, and even "favorites" (homosexual lovers of Han emperors)
• finally, an autobiography (begins with an account of his father)

7. General structure

• not a linear narrative; certain repetition and crossover of events but from different perspective in different place

D. "Po I and Shu Ch'i"

G. "The Biography of Ching K'o"

G. "The Death of Hsiang Yu"

H. "General Li Kuang"

I. Conclusions to Records (and Chinese history)

• history as moral-social-political philosophy
• historian as arbiter of fame and name
• he rectifies his own name through rectifying those of others
• moral vision

A. Historical Background

• collapse of the Han [map of Period of Disunity]
• loss of imperial unity for 3.5 centuries: Three Kingdoms (220-280); Jin (265-316); Northern and Southern (304-589)
• yet, acheivements were made; much great poetry and literary criticism was written during the period, much of it influenced by Buddhism and Taoism

B. Cultural Characterisitics

1. collapse of Confucian ideal of service to the state

2. eremetic tradition

3. retreat into the self

4. Hsi K'ang's letter to Shan T'ao (BIRCH, 162)

C. Buddhism comes to China

1.Buddhist teaching

• Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, suffering is caused by desire, desire must be eliminated, desire is eliminated by following the 8-fold path (a path of self-cultivation designed to eliminate desires)
• the world is an illusion (maya); things are not things in themselves but mere reflections of our desires
• if we recognize the illusory nature of the world and of the self, we will reach a state of nirvana, a state of desirelessness and bliss
• cycle of reincarnation and karma
• various ways of reaching nirvana in different Buddhisms: (a) Doing good; (b) Meditation; (c) Instant enlightenment in Zen

2. appeal in a world of chaos

3. influence

• only became influential in the period of disunity
• influenced later poetry

D. Influence of nomadic northern cultures

• occupation of northern China throughout most of this period
• the impact of non-Chinese minorities on Chinese culture was substantial and undermines the myth of the purity of Chinese culture
• music, poetry...
• huge exodus of people from north to south during this period

A. History

• one of the "hundred" schools during the Warring States period
• Lao Tzu, author of Tao Te ching (5thc BC) and Chuang-tzu (4thc BC) [for comparison of various textual versions of the Tao Te Ching, in Chinese and in various translation, go to Tao Te King von Lao Tse]
• arose as a reaction against the Confucians and Legalist who overregulated social life, but had as a goal something very similar to the Confucians and Legalists (ie. social harmony)
• only becomes popular in the period of disunity

B. religious vs. philosophical Taoism

C. What is Tao?

D. rejection of Confucian prescribed moral behavior

E. primitivism and Taoist views toward culture and civilization

• civilization, culture, language, ethics (what constitutes humanity in the Confucian frame) alienates one from the Tao

F. rejection of dualistic thinking: as pictured in the Yin-Yang symbol

G. Name, namelessness, and the inadequacy of language

H. naturalness and inaction (wuwei)

I. things in a constant flux; don't become attached to things

J. who can become a Taoist sage?

K. death as a natural process in the long-term scheme of things

L. other comments

• not to be take too literally; more of an antitode to the world as view by the Confucians, serves an important social role in China

M. What is the relation of Taoist thought to literature?

1. literature of period expresses Taoist ideas

2. paradox of language in Taoist thought

3. escape from the paradox of language through literature

• more able to speak the Way
• regular language is inadequate, but literature uses metaphor
• it tries to capture the complexity of the world without limiting it
• meaning beyond the words
• imagination as the realm of the Tao

A.Biography (372-427)

1. intro remarks

2. life

• born into a chaotic age
• from a distinguished family (from Jiangxi) but one in decline; raised in the Confucian tradition
• in 393, at the age of 29, made a stab at a civil service career and served in the gov't briefly, but he quickly resigned the post finding it an intolerable lifestyle
• lived and worked for a while in the Chin capital, Chien-k'ang (present Nanjing), for a general (Huan Hsuan) competing with the new emperor (An) who came to the throne as a five year old when his father was strangulated; on and off positions until 403
• in 403, worked for 80 days in a new job and then abruptly quit, writing his famous "Back Home Again Chant"
• he moves to the family farm for good; his family's fortune decline to the point wher he even had to farm to support his mother and was quite poor [wrote a poem called "Begging for food"]

B. General Remarks on his Poetry

• Poet of the "Garden and Fields" (nature poet)
• Description of simple life
• Philosophical/Taoist bent (versus Confucianism)
• first poet to write sing the joys of wine
• form and language

C. "On Drinking Wine" #5 (MATERIALS, 8) [BIRCH, 184]

D. "Peach-Blossom Spring" (BIRCH)

A. general remarks about T'ang [map of Tang]

• considered perhaps the most glorious period in the history of China
• period of the greatest acheivements in poetry
• Tang was also a period of great advances in government bureaucracy and the civil service exam
• Taoism and Buddhism continued to be popular, but Confucianism made a gradual comeback; [read Han Yu's "Memorial on Buddhism"]
• period of tremendous contact with the outside world; great trade along the Silk Road [see Silk Road Seattle website]
• the capital of Ch'ang-an: most advanced, populous, cosmopolitan city in the world
• first planned city (Map of Ch'ang-an, absolutely symmetrical and in concentric circles
• advances in astronomy, medicine, kites, chairs, tea, coal, printing

B. Sui Dynasty (581-618)

• after 4 centuries of disunity, the Sui finally unified China
• its two emperors (Yang Chien and his son Yang-ti) were harsh and the dynasty did not last, but its legacy is to have reunified China
• reputation of Yang-ti is highly negative: oppressive, and liscentious
• acheivements: (a) unifying China and reestablishing central imperial authority and strong bureaucratic gov't; (b) repaired the Great Wall; (c) dug Grand Canal [picture of Grand Canal]
• its harshness and demands on the population for corvee labor and military service led to rebellion

C.Tang established (618-917)

1. anti-Sui rebellion

• led by Li Yuan and his son, Li Shih-min
• in 617 the Lis captured Ch'ang-an and the following year Yang-ti was assasinated, at which point they declared the founding of the Tang dynasty
• Chang'an made capital, as it had been during the Qin and Han, and Sui


2. Emperor Kao-tsu (Li Yuan) (618-626)

3. T'ai-tsung (Li Shih-min) (626-649)

• reestablished central authority around the nation
• drove off the northern barbarians
• imperial expansion, not quite what it was during the Han


4. Kao-tsung (649-683)

• son of T'ai-tsung


5. Wu Tse-t'ien (683-90, as regent to two different emperors; 690-705 as empress)

• one of only a handful of women to rule
• in 690 she takes over the reins of power herself and changes the name of the dynasty to Chou
• vilified as an evil, ambitious woman with a voracious sexual appetite; in fact her rule was good, peaceful and quite prosperous
• in 705, her son deposed her and brought the name of the Tang back
• the two deposed emperors were brought back and ruled for a short time
• followed by Chung-tsung (705-710) and Jui-tsung (710-712)


7. Hsuan-tsung (712-756)

• second blossoming of the dynasty (after the rule of T'ai-tsung)
• remembered for his benevolent rule in his the early part of his career and the relationship with his new concubine in the latter part
• the arts, particularly poetry, thrived under his direction


8.An Lushan Rebellion (755-763)

• rebellion led by An Lushan, T'ang general of northern territories
• increased military independence and decreased central authority, led An to attempt a revolt
• by 756, captured Loyang and Chang'an
• An killed the following year, but son and subordinates carry on the revolt until it was suppressed in 763
• caused trememdous devastation
• marked the beginning of the long and gradual decline of the Tang
• love affair of Emperor Hsuan-Tsung and Yang Kui-fei
• greatly effected poets of the time (including Li Po and Tu Fu)