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The Analects » (Special Value)

Book cover image of The Analects by Confucius

Authors: Confucius, Thomas Crofts (Editor), William E. Soothill
ISBN-13: 9780486284842, ISBN-10: 0486284840
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Dover Publications
Date Published: April 1995
Edition: Special Value

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Author Biography: Confucius

Burton Watson has taught at Columbia, Stanford, and Kyoto Universities and is one of the world's best-known translators of Chinese and Japanese works. His translations include The Tales of the Heike; The Lotus Sutra; the writings of Zhuangzi, Mozi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi; The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry; and Records of the Grand Historian.

Book Synopsis

Rich distillation of the timeless precepts of extremely influential Chinese philosopher and social theorist. Includes "Concerning Fundamental Principles," "Concerning Government," "The Eight Dancers: Concerning Manners and Morals," and much more. Footnotes.

Publishers Weekly

Because they offer diverse and sometimes diametrically opposite meanings, the words of Chinese classics are as likely to reflect the prejudices of the translator as the are to exhibit scholarly rigor. This volume is no exception. The publisher's biography of Leys calls him "an astringent observer," and such observations are readily apparent in Leys's sometimes bad-tempered and occasionally ill-judged glosses on a thinker whom he clearly believes would have agreed with him that late 20th-century culture is undergoing the same chaotic moral crisis as 6th-century B.C. China. While the translations are often elegant, and Leys's endnotes offer a few telling examinations of the vagaries and subtleties of translating the Analects, Leys is too often diverted from the Analects by barely relevant citations from European writers and his own digs at other translators of Confucius. Furthermore, neither the introduction nor the endnotes adequately place Confucius in historical context, making the book strangely vague about Confucius's impact on his time and people. (Jan.)

Table of Contents

Map
Introduction
ITo Learn, and Then1
IIIn Government, the Secret9
IIIEight Rows of Dancers19
IVOf Villages, Humanity31
VKung-yeh Ch'ang41
VIJan Yung Is One Who53
VIITransmitting Insight, But65
VIIISurely T'ai Po79
IXThe Master Rarely89
XHis Native Village101
XIStudies Begin111
XIIYen Hui125
XIIIAdept Lu137
XIVYuan Szu Asked About151
XVDuke Ling of Wei169
XVIThe House of Chi183
XVIIYang Huo193
XVIIIThe Lord of Wei205
XIXAdept Chang215
XXEmperor Yao Said227
Notes233
Historical Table246
Key Terms: An Outline of Confucian Thought247
Further Reading251

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