Xunzi: The Complete Text Kindle Edition

A very thoughtfully done translation of the work. The physical book is a pleasure to read (I got both the Kindle and print editions though, so I always have Master Xun's words handy).

Mr. Hutton left many notes that further my understanding, instead of esoteric it could be easily understood.

Each page is insightful!
After the Bible this is my favorite text - hope to one day apply even 1% of wisdom here.

As described and on time.

This is a translation of Eric Hutton, trans., Xunzi: The Complete Text.

Eric Hutton has produced a complete translation of the Xunzi, the eponymous writings of a philosopher who is (along with Confucius himself and Mengzi) one of the three most important early Confucians. The translation is elegant, accessible, and accurate. Hutton makes some innovative editorial choices in this translation, such as rendering the poetry Xunzi cites into rhyming verse in English. Not everyone will agree with this decision, but I find that it makes the poetry much easier to read and appreciate. I also concur with Hutton’s decision to add line numbers to chapters. Those of us who encourage our students to use the technique of “close reading” will particularly appreciate this. Hutton's rendering is better than any previous translation I know of, including those by Burton Watson and John Knoblock. The textual notes will be very useful to scholars who can read the original Chinese. Consequently, specialists in Chinese philosophy and libraries will definitely buy this translation. Furthermore, I believe that Hutton’s translation will meet a market demand currently left open by other renderings of the Xunzi (also referred to as the Hsun Tzu). Burton Watson’s selective translation (Columbia University Press) and Hutton’s own selections in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, (Hackett Publishing) meet the needs of many undergraduate survey courses. John Knoblock’s pricey three-volume Xunzi (Stanford University Press), republished in a two-volume translation with Chinese on facing pages (Hunan Publishing House), is useful for specialist scholars. What is needed is something in between these two extremes. In addition to being an important work of high-level scholarship, Hutton’s translation will be invaluable for non-specialists with an interest in Chinese thought, ranging from advanced undergraduates and graduate students, to scholars in Chinese language and literature, history, philosophy, religious studies, and other disciplines. Hutton’s work is more comprehensive and more philosophically precise than Watson’s translation, but much more readable than Knoblock’s version. For all these reasons, Hutton’s translation is clearly a significant achievement.

Wonderful!

Excellent- quality and contents.

This is not just any translation of the Xunzi; it is an edition accessible to the general public, closely imitating the poetry of the original text, and correcting the errors of past editions. It hits all the right notes and is bound to become the standard edition of the text for decades to come. If you are interested in Confucianism, you will find this book quite valuable and you will most likely wish that other Chinese classics received this amount of attention and talent. The translation quality makes this one of those few foreign classics that really is worth owning for yourself rather than borrowing from a library.

There is no better way to show the improvements Hutton has made to the Xunzi translation than by comparing it to previous efforts. Here is a section of chapter 1 in a previous translation by John Knoblock:

“There must be some beginning for every kind of phenomenon that occurs. The coming of honor and disgrace must be a reflection of inner power. <From rotting meat come maggots; decaying wood produces woodworms.>” (The brackets indicate a half-blockquote in the original text, which is one of Knoblock’s ways to indicate a probable quotation.)

Here is Hutton:

“All the things and the kinds that come about / Surely have a point from which they start out. / Honor and disgrace that comes unto you / Surely reflects your degree of virtue. / In rotten meat bugs are generated. / In fish that’s spoiled maggots are created.”

The rhyme scheme is as found in the original classical Chinese! Most translations of the Chinese philosophy classics, with the notable exception of James Legge’s Laozi, do not attempt to reproduce ancient rhymes in anything like an acceptable way, but Hutton both tries and succeeds. The result conveys the author’s intent to teach the cosmic law of cause and effect in singsongy verse.

Hutton’s vocabulary is generally similar to Burton Watson, who translated several excerpts from the Xunzi quite well, with the occasional errors of a trailblazer. Here is Watson in the “Dispelling Obsession” chapter:

“These men with their limited understanding saw one corner of the Way and, failing to understand that it was only a corner, they considered it sufficient and proceeded to expound it in engaging terms.”

Here is Hutton:

“People of twisted understanding observe one corner of the Way and are unable to recognize it as such. So, they think it sufficient and proceed to embellish it.”

Swift, clear, and to the point. While Watson’s translation is generally good, Hutton has improved on it, most likely by thinking about how each paragraph of his text will be pored over by a generation of bleary-eyed undergraduates looking for something tough to chew on. Here, as it is throughout the book, the philosophical value of each statement is made blunt enough to trip up every reader, so that a large book that looks like a jumble of adages at first quickly takes on the qualities of a well-articulated worldview.

Here is one last comparison between all three translations, from the head of the infamous chapter “Human Nature is Evil”.

Watson: “Man’s nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity. The nature of man is such that he is born with a fondness for profit. If he indulges this fondness, it will lead him into wrangling and strife, and all sense of courtesy and humility will disappear.”

Knoblock: “Human nature is evil; any good in humans is acquired by conscious exertion. Now, the nature of man is such that he is born with a love of profit. Following this nature will cause its aggressiveness and greedy tendencies to grow and courtesy and deference to disappear."

Hutton: “People’s nature is bad. Their goodness is a matter of deliberate effort. Now people’s nature is such that they are born with a fondness for profit in them. If they follow along with this, then struggle and contention will arise, and yielding and deference will perish therein.”

In these three passages, the most obviously inaccurate translation is “aggressiveness” by Knoblock; the typical result of a tin ear. Watson has offered an overly smooth cultural translation with “courtesy and humility,” which cannot be justified by the text, and Knoblock has adopted precisely half of this for some reason. Hutton’s “yielding and deference” is what the text literally says. But Hutton always tries to open the door to accurate comprehension, and choices such as this, or the choice of translating “bad” instead of “evil”, should not be regarded as a poor compromise.

In short, this translation could not possibly be more thorough or more welcoming to new readers. I expect to see many more positive reviews of it soon.

[I received a review copy of the text from the publisher; I hope to place a review in a Chinese journal. I received no compensation.]