Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | GuōPú |
Gwoyeu Romatzyh | Guo Pwu |
Wade–Giles | Kuo1 P'u2 |
IPA | [kwó pʰǔ] |
Wu | |
Romanization | KueʔPoʔ |
Yue:Cantonese | |
Yale Romanization | Gwok Puk |
Jyutping | Gwok3 Pok3 |
IPA | [kʷɔk̚˧ pʰɔk̚˧] |
Southern Min | |
Hokkien POJ | Kueh Phok |
Middle Chinese | |
Middle Chinese | kwak pʰuwk |
Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Jǐngchún |
Gwoyeu Romatzyh | Jiingchwen |
Wade–Giles | Ching3-ch'un2 |
Yue:Cantonese | |
Yale Romanization | Gíng-sèuhn |
Jyutping | Ging2-seon4 |
Southern Min | |
Hokkien POJ | Kíng-sûn |
Middle Chinese | |
Middle Chinese | kjǽng dʒwin |
Guo Pu (Chinese :郭璞;AD 276–324),courtesy name Jingchun (Chinese :景純; pinyin :Jǐngchún),was a Chinese historian,poet,and writer during the Eastern Jin period,and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic,geomancer,collector of strange tales,editor of old texts,and erudite commentator. He was the first commentator of the Shan Hai Jing and so probably,with the noted Han bibliographer Liu Xin,was instrumental in preserving this valuable mythological and religious text. [1] Guo Pu was the well educated son of a governor. He was a natural historian and a prolific writer of the Jin dynasty. He is the author of The Book of Burial ,the first-ever and the most authoritative source of feng shui doctrine and the first book to address the concept of feng shui in the history of China,making Guo Pu the first person historically to define feng shui,and therefore,Guo Pu is usually called the father of feng shui in China. [2] [3]
A native of Wenxi County,in what is now southwest Shanxi Province,Guo studied Daoist occultism and prognostication in his youth,and mainly worked as a prognosticator for various local officials and leaders,interpreting omens and portents in order to predict the success or failure of various endeavors. [4] In AD 307 a Xiongnu clan invaded the area and Guo's family relocated south of the Yangtze River,reaching Xuancheng and eventually settling in Jiankang (modern Nanjing). [4] Guo served as an omen-interpreter to military leaders and Eastern Jin chancellor Wang Dao before being appointed to official court positions in 318 and 320. Guo's mother died in 322,which caused Guo to resign his position and spend a year in mourning. [4] In 323 Guo joined the staff of warlord Wang Dun,who controlled much of the modern Hunan and Hubei areas,but was executed in 324 after he failed to produce a favorable omen toward Wang's planned usurpation of the Eastern Jin throne. [4]
Guo was likely the most learned person of his era,and is one of the foremost commentators on ancient Chinese works. [5] He wrote commentaries to the Chu Ci , Shan Hai Jing , Mu Tianzi Zhuan , Fangyan , Erya ,Sima Xiangru's "Fu on the Excursion Hunt of the Son of Heaven",and three ancient dictionaries:Cang Jie,Yuanli,and Boxue. [5] Guo's commentaries,which identify and explain rare words and allusions,are often the only surviving sources of these glosses,and without which leave the original work mostly incomprehensible to modern readers. [5] In particular,Guo's commentaries to the Erya,Shan Hai Jing,and Fangyan are considered sufficiently authoritative that they are included in all standard versions of those texts. [5] Without his glosses and commentaries,large portions of these texts would be unintelligible today. [6]
Guo was also an accomplished poet,and his 11 surviving fu poems display his extensive command of the ancient Chinese language. [7] One of them,entitled "Fu on the Yangtze River" (Jiang fu 江賦),used the image of the Yangtze to praise the restoration of the Jin dynasty,and established his reputation as a leading literary figure. [8] His best known poems are a series entitled "Wandering as an Immortal" (youxian 遊仙),of which 14 survive. [7] The bibliography monograph of the Records of the Sui dynasty list Guo's works in 17 volumes;by the Tang dynasty only 10 volumes remained,and by the end of the Song dynasty all of Guo's writings not included in the Wen Xuan had been lost. [7] All that remains today are his writings from the Wen Xuan and reconstructions from quotations in other surviving works. [7]
The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian tradition,themselves an abridgment of the Thirteen Classics. The Chinese classics used a form of written Chinese consciously imitated by later authors,now known as Classical Chinese. A common Chinese word for "classic" literally means 'warp thread',in reference to the techniques by which works of this period were bound into volumes.
Feng shui,sometimes called Chinese geomancy,is a traditional form of geomancy that originated in Ancient China and claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. The term feng shui means,literally,"wind-water". From ancient times,landscapes and bodies of water were thought to direct the flow of the universal Qi –"cosmic current" or energy –through places and structures. More broadly,feng shui includes astronomical,astrological,architectural,cosmological,geographical,and topographical dimensions.
Han was an ancient Chinese state during the Warring States period of ancient China. Scholars frequently render the name as Hann to clearly distinguish it from China's later Han dynasty.
Ban Gu was a Chinese historian,poet,and politician best known for his part in compiling the Book of Han,the second of China's 24 dynastic histories. He also wrote a number of fu,a major literary form,part prose and part poetry,which is particularly associated with the Han era. A number of Ban's fu were collected by Xiao Tong in the Wen Xuan.
Wenzhou is a prefecture-level city in China's Zhejiang province. Wenzhou is located at the extreme southeast of Zhejiang,bordering Lishui to the west,Taizhou to the north,and the province of Fujian to the south. The area consists of mostly mountainous terrain,as well as hundreds of islands off the East China Sea coast,which is nearly 355 kilometres in length. It is said that the city's land is 70% mountains,20% farmland,and 10% water. At the time of the 2010 Chinese census,3,039,500 people lived in Wenzhou's urban area. The greater Wenzhou prefecture,which also includes three satellite cities and six counties,had a population totalling 9,122,100,of which 31.16% are residents originally from outside of Wenzhou.
Qu Yuan was a Chinese poet and aristocrat in the State of Chu during the Warring States period. He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses,especially through the poems of the Chu Ci anthology:a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by his verse writing. Together with the Shi Jing,the Chu Ci is one of the two greatest collections of ancient Chinese verse. He is also remembered in connection to the supposed origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.
The Guoyu,usually translated as Discourses of the States,is an ancient Chinese text that consists of a collection of speeches attributed to rulers and other men from the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC). It comprises a total of 240 speeches,ranging from the reign of King Mu of Zhou to the execution of the Jin minister Zhibo in 453 BC. Compilation of the Guoyu probably began during the 5th century and continued until the late 4th century BC. The earliest chapter of the compilation is the Discourses of Zhou.
Sima Xiangru was a Chinese musician,poet,and politician who lived during the Western Han dynasty. Sima is a significant figure in the history of Classical Chinese poetry,and is generally regarded as the greatest of all composers of Chinese fu rhapsodies. His poetry includes his invention or at least development of the fu form,applying new metrical rhythms to the lines of poetry,which he mixed with lines of prose,and provided with several of what would in ensuing centuries become among a group of common set topics for this genre. Sima Xiangru was also versatile enough to write in the Chu ci style,while it was enjoying a renaissance,and he also wrote lyrics in what would become known as the yuefu formal style.
The Commentary on the Water Classic,or Commentaries on the Water Classic,commonly known as Shui Jing Zhu,is a work on the Chinese geography in ancient times,describing the traditional understanding of its waterways and ancient canals,compiled by Li Daoyuan during the Northern Wei dynasty. The book is divided into sections by river,each described with its source,course,and major tributaries,including cultural and historical notes.
Yang Xiong was a Chinese philosopher,poet,and politician of the Western Han dynasty known for his philosophical writings and fu poetry compositions.
Li Jing,originally Xu Jingtong (徐景通),briefly Xu Jing (徐璟) in 937–939,courtesy name Boyu (伯玉),also known by his temple name as the Emperor Yuanzong of Southern Tang (南唐元宗),also known in historiography as the Middle Lord of Southern Tang (南唐中主),was the second and penultimate monarch of China's Southern Tang dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He reigned his state from 943 until his death.
Fu,often translated "rhapsody" or "poetic exposition",is a form of Chinese rhymed prose that was the dominant literary form in China during the Han dynasty. Fu are intermediary pieces between poetry and prose in which a place,object,feeling,or other subject is described and rhapsodized in exhaustive detail and from as many angles as possible. They were not sung like songs,but were recited or chanted. The distinguishing characteristics of fu include alternating rhyme and prose,varying line lengths,close alliteration,onomatopoeia,loose parallelism,and extensive cataloging of their topics. Classical fu composers tended to use as wide a vocabulary as possible in their compositions,and therefore fu often contain rare and archaic Chinese words and characters.
David Richard Knechtges is an American sinologist and professor emeritus of Chinese literature at the University of Washington. An expert on Han dynasty and Six dynasties period literature,Knechtges' studies of Chinese fu poetry are largely responsible for the revival of Western academic interest in the subject,a major genre which had become largely neglected until the mid-20th century.
The Wen Xuan,usually translated Selections of Refined Literature,is one of the earliest and most important anthologies of Chinese poetry and literature,and is one of the world's oldest literary anthologies to be arranged by topic. It is a selection of what were judged to be the best poetic and prose pieces from the late Warring States period to the early Liang dynasty,excluding the Chinese Classics and philosophical texts. The Wen Xuan preserves most of the greatest fu rhapsody and shi poetry pieces from the Qin and Han dynasties,and for much of pre-modern history was one of the primary sources of literary knowledge for educated Chinese.
New Songs from the Jade Terrace is an anthology of early medieval Chinese poetry in the romantic or semi-erotic "palace style" that dates to the late Southern dynasties period (420–589). Most editions of New Songs contain 670 poems by many different authors,mainly comprising pentasyllabic poetry but also some yuefu lyrical verse and other types of poems. New Songs was probably compiled around the early to mid-530s by Xu Ling,an official and scholar who served at the court of Xiao Gang,a crown prince of the Liang dynasty (502–587) who later ascended the throne as Emperor Jianwen of Liang.
The History of fu poetry covers the beginnings of the Chinese literary genre of fu. The term fu describes literary works that have certain characteristics. English lacks an equivalent term. Sometimes called "rhapsodies",sometimes "rhyme-prose",fu have qualities of both poetry and prose:both are obligatory. The fu form is a poeric treatment,wherein a topic of interest,such as an exotic object,a profound feeling,or an encyclopedic subject,is described and rhapsodized upon,in exhaustive detail and from various angles. For a piece to be truly considered to be in the fu genre,it must follow the rules of this form,in terms of structure,meter,and so on.
Fu is an ancient Han Chinese surname of imperial origin which is at least 4,000 years old. The great-great-great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor,Dayou,bestowed this surname to his son Fu Yi and his descendants. Dayou is the eldest son of Danzhu and grandson of Emperor Yao.
Yangzhou,Yangchow or Yang Province was one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China mentioned in historical texts such as the Tribute of Yu,Erya and Rites of Zhou.
Bao Zhao was a Chinese poet,writer,and official known for his shi poetry,fu rhapsodies,and parallel prose who lived during the Liu Song dynasty (420–479). Bao's best known surviving work is his "Fu on the Ruined City",a long fu rhapsody on the ruined city of Guangling.
Mo (貘) was the Chinese name for the giant panda from the 3rd century BCE to the 19th century CE. In 1824,the French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat identified the mo as the black-and-white Malayan tapir. Chinese woodblocks depict the mo (貘) as having an elephant trunk,rhinoceros eyes,cow tail and tiger paws,following the description of 9th-century Tang poet Bai/Bo Juyi. Abel-Rémusat's interpretation was adopted in Western zoology,and later accepted as modern scientific fact in China and Japan. In the 20th century,since mo had lost its original meaning,the giant panda was given a new Chinese name da xiongmao.