Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | ShuōYuàn |
Wade–Giles | Shuo Yüan |
Yue:Cantonese | |
Jyutping | Syut3 Jyun2 |
Southern Min | |
Hokkien POJ | Soat-oán |
Tâi-lô | Suat-uán |
Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Revised Romanization | seol-won |
The Shuo Yuan (Chinese :說苑; Jyutping :Syut3 Jyun2; Pe̍h-ōe-jī :Soat-oán),variously translated as Garden of Stories,Garden of Persuasions,Garden of Talks,Garden of Eloquence,etc.,is a collection of stories and anecdotes from the pre-Qin period (先秦) to the Western Han dynasty. The stories were compiled and annotated by the imperial librarian Liu Xiang (d. 6 BCE). In many cases,multiple versions of the same story are included,making the book a valuable source for the study of early texts. [1]
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC,particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian tradition,themselves a customary abridgment of the "Thirteen Classics". All of these pre-Qin texts were written in either Old or Classical Chinese. All three canons are collectively known as the classics.
The Sui dynasty was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties,thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty,and laying the foundations for the much longer lasting Tang dynasty.
Han Yu,courtesy name Tuizhi,and commonly known by his posthumous name Han Wengong (韓文公),was an essayist,Confucian scholar,poet,and government official during the Tang dynasty who significantly influenced the development of Neo-Confucianism. Described as "comparable in stature to Dante,Shakespeare or Goethe" for his influence on the Chinese literary tradition,Han Yu stood for strong central authority in politics and orthodoxy in cultural matters.
Shuowen Jiezi is an ancient Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen during the Eastern Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary,it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them,as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals.
Liu Xiang,born Liu Gengsheng and bearing the courtesy name Zizheng,was a Chinese astronomer,historian,poet,politician,librarian,and writer of the Western Han Dynasty. Among his polymathic scholarly specialties were history,literary bibliography,and astronomy. He is particularly well known for his bibliographic work in cataloging and editing the extensive imperial library.
The Guoyu,usually translated 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. Guoyu was probably compiled beginning in the 5th century BC and continuing to the late 4th century BC. The earliest chapter of the compilation is the Discourses of Zhou.
The Book of Han or History of the Former Han is a history of China finished in 111 AD,covering the Western,or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the Book of Former Han.
The Chu ci,variously translated as Verses of Chu,Songs of Chu,or Elegies of Chu,is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry including works traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan and Song Yu from the Warring States period,and also a large number of works composed several centuries later,during the Han dynasty. The traditional version of the Chu ci contains 17 major sections,anthologized with its current contents by Wang Yi,a 2nd-century AD librarian who served under Emperor Shun of Han. The early Classical Chinese poetry is mainly known through the two anthologies the Chu ci and the Shi jing.
"Li Sao" is an ancient Chinese poem from the anthology Chuci traditionally attributed to Qu Yuan. Li Sao dates from the 3rd century BCE,during the Chinese Warring States period.
Fayuan Zhulin,in 100 juan,is a Buddhist encyclopedia compiled AD 668 by Daoshi (道世). It comprises Buddhist and other ancient texts otherwise lost,and is thus an important source for the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism. It was used under the Ming Dynasty to reconstruct older zhiguai collections.
Jia Yi was a Chinese essayist,poet and politician of the Western Han dynasty,best known as one of the earliest known writers of fu rhapsody and for his essay "Disquisition Finding Fault with Qin",which criticises the Qin dynasty and describes Jia's opinions on the reasons for its collapse. In particular,he is famous for his two fu,On the Owl (鵩鳥賦) and his Lament for Qu Yuan (吊屈原賦). He is also the author of the treatise Xinshu (新書),containing political and educational insights.
The Bamboo Annals,also known as the Ji Tomb Annals,is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time and extends to 299 BC,with the later centuries focusing on the history of the State of Wei in the Warring States period. It thus covers a similar period to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. The original may have been lost during the Song dynasty,and the text is known today in two versions,a "current text" of disputed authenticity and an incomplete "ancient text".
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.
The I Ching or Yi Jing,usually translated as Book of Changes or Classic of Changes,is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC),the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings". After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC,the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East,and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought.
Sun Sheng (c.302–373),courtesy name Anguo,was a Jin dynasty historian. He was a native of Pingyao County,Jinzhong,Shanxi. He was described to be very studious,and was never seen without holding a book in his hand from his youth to his old age.
Bianwen refers to a literary form that is believed to be some of the earliest examples of vernacular and prosimetric narratives in Chinese literature. These texts date back to the Tang dynasty (618–907) and Five Dynasties (907–960) periods,and were first discovered among a cache of manuscripts at Dunhuang,Gansu Province,China in the early twentieth century.
The Song of the Yue Boatman is a short song in an unknown language of southern China said to have been recorded around 528 BC. A transcription using Chinese characters,together with a Chinese version,is preserved in the Garden of Stories compiled by Liu Xiang five centuries later.
A Brief History of Chinese Fiction is a book written by Lu Xun as a survey of traditional Chinese fiction. It was first published in Chinese in 1930,translated into Japanese,Korean,German,and then into English in 1959 by Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi. It was the first survey of Chinese fiction to be published in China,and has been influential in shaping later scholarship.
The Mozi,also called the Mojing or the Mohist canon,is an ancient Chinese text from the Warring States period (476–221 BC) that expounds the philosophy of Mohism. It propounds such Mohist ideas as impartiality,meritocratic governance,economic growth and aversion to ostentation,and is known for its plain and simple language.
The Shuowen tongxun dingsheng is an 18-volume study of the Shuowen Jiezi completed in 1833 by the Qing phonologist Zhu Junsheng (朱駿聲) (1788–1858) and published in 1870. The bulk of the work is a phonetic study in which the 9000 characters of the Shuowen Jiezi and 7000 additional characters are grouped into 1137 series,each sharing a phonetic element. These phonetic series were further grouped into 18 Shijing rhyme groups,based on Duan Yucai's dictum that characters sharing a phonetic element belonged in the same rhyme group. The work thus anticipated the structure of Bernard Karlgren's Grammata Serica Recensa. The work also includes very detailed notes on rhyming,semantics,and interchangeable characters.
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