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Early Chinese Literature

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EARLY CHINESE LITERATURE. By Burton Watson. 304 pp. New York : Columbia University Press, 1962. ISBN 0-231-08671-7 (pbk.)

Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. Unlike certain others, he wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden his books with extraneous matter. His many translations and studies of Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformly high quality, and are well worth owning as they are books one often to returns to.

In the present book he has given us an account of Chinese writing from the time of the Chou Dynasty (1100 B.C. to 249 B.C) to the middle of the Latter Han (A.D. 25 to A.D. 220). The important works of this period are described with many illustrative quotations.

After a brief but typically excellent Introduction, three main sections follow : HISTORY; PHILOSOPHY; POETRY. Each section includes a selected list of translations, and the book is rounded out with a Chronology and a detailed Index.

Of especial interest in the Introduction is Watson's discussion of Classical Chinese, where, after a few remarks on the nature of the language, he makes a point of telling us that "the reader should perhaps be reminded that when he reads these early Chinese works in translation, he is at many points reading not an incontovertible rendering of the meaning of the original, but only one of a variety of tentative interpretations" (p.12). This is a useful reminder for those laboring under the misapprehension that there can be such a thing as a 'definitive' translation from Classical Chinese.

Watson covers a wide range of topics in his book. HISTORY gives us his discussions of, and translations from, The Book of Documents, The Spring and Autumn Annals, The Tso chuan, The Kuo yu or Conversations from the States; The Chan-kuo ts'e or Intrigues of the Warring States; and several other works.

PHILOSOPHY takes up Confucian Writings such The Lun yu or Analects, The Meng Tzu or Mencius, the Hsun tzu, etc.; Ritual Texts such as The Li chi or Book of Rites, The Hsiao Ching or Classic of Filial Piety (in style and contents similar to the Li chi though transmitted separately), The I ching or Book of Changes, etc. Then follow the Mohist Writings, the Taoist Writings (The Lao tzu, The Chuang Tzu, The Lieh Tzu), Legalist Writings (Book of Lord Shang, The Han Fei Tzu) and Eclectic Writings (The Kuan Tzu).

POETRY offers Watson's interesting discussions of, and fine translations from, The Book of Songs, The Ch'u Tz'u or Elegies of Ch'u, The Han Fu, and a few selected Songs and Ballads.

Watson's book is civilized, informative, well-written, and richly illustrated, and can be strongly recommended as an excellent survey of a fascinating period, and as interesting background reading for both students and the general reader.