Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231150393
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
Compiled by a leading scholar of Chinese poetry, Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown is the first collection of Chan (Zen) poems to be situated within Chan thought and practice. Combined with exquisite paintings by Charles Chu, the anthology compellingly captures the ideological and literary nuances of works that were composed, paradoxically, to "say more by saying less," and creates an unparalleled experience for readers of all backgrounds. Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown includes verse composed by monk-poets of the eighth to the seventeenth centuries. Their style ranges from the direct vernacular to the evocative and imagistic. Egan's faithful and elegant translations of poems by Han Shan, Guanxiu, and Qiji, among many others, do justice to their perceptions and insights, and his detailed notes and analyses unravel centuries of Chan metaphor and allusion. In these gems, monk-poets join mainstream ideas on poetic function to religious reflection and proselytizing, carving out a distinct genre that came to influence generations of poets, critics, and writers. The simplicity of Chan poetry belies its complex ideology and sophisticated language, elements Egan vividly explicates in his religious and literary critique. His interpretive strategies enable a richer understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, Chan philosophy, and the principles of Chinese poetry.
Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231156472
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
While the rise of the charmingly simple, brilliantly evocative haiku is often associated with the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, the form had already flourished for more than four hundred years before Basho even began to write. These early poems, known as hokku, are identical to haiku in syllable count and structure but function differently as a genre. Whereas each haiku is its own constellation of image and meaning, a hokku opens a series of linked, collaborative stanzas in a sequence called renga. Under the mastery of Basho, hokku first gained its modern independence. His talents contributed to the evolution of the style into the haiku beloved by so many poets around the world--Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, and Billy Collins being notable devotees. Haiku Before Haiku presents 320 hokku composed between the thirteenth and early eighteenth centuries, from the poems of the courtier Nijo Yoshimoto to those of the genre's first "professional" master, Sogi, and his disciples. It features 20 masterpieces by Basho himself. Steven D. Carter introduces the history of haiku and its aesthetics, classifying these poems according to style and context. His rich commentary and notes on composition and setting illuminate each work, and he provides brief biographies of the poets, the original Japanese text in romanized form, and earlier, classical poems to which some of the hokku allude.
Author: Benjamin Brose
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824857240
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Patrons and Patriarchs breaks new ground in the study of clergy-court relations during the tumultuous period that spanned the collapse of the Tang dynasty (618–907) and the consolidation of the Northern Song (960–1127). This era, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, has typically been characterized as a time of debilitating violence and instability, but it also brought increased economic prosperity, regional development, and political autonomy to southern territories. The book describes how the formation of new states in southeastern China elevated local Buddhist traditions and moved Chan (Zen) monks from the margins to the center of Chinese society. Drawing on biographies, inscriptions, private histories, and government records, it argues that the shift in imperial patronage from a diverse array of Buddhist clerics to members of specific Chan lineages was driven by political, social, and geographical reorientations set in motion by the collapse of the Tang dynasty and the consolidation of regional powers during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. As monastic communities representing diverse arrays of thought, practice, and pedagogy allied with rival political factions, the outcome of power struggles determined which clerical networks assumed positions of power and which doctrines were enshrined as orthodoxy. Rather than view the ascent of Chan monks and their traditions as instances of intellectual hegemony, this book focuses on the larger sociopolitical processes that lifted members of Chan lineages onto the imperial stage. Against the historical backdrop of the tenth century, Patrons and Patriarchs explores the nature and function of Chan lineage systems, the relationships between monastic and lay families, and the place of patronage in establishing identity and authority in monastic movements.
Author: Yang Shang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
Compiled in China in the fourth–third centuries BCE, The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to rule over society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a “rich state and a strong army” will be the first step toward unification of “All-under-Heaven.” These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In Yuri Pines’s translation, The Book of Lord Shang’s intellectual boldness and surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text’s vibrant contribution to global political thought. The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the statesman and theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China’s so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work’s previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book’s dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. Pines applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text’s content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This abridged and revised edition of Pines’s annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists. It highlights the text’s practical success and its influence on political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China.
Author: Pamela D. Winfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190469315
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
The stereotype of Zen Buddhism as a minimalistic or even immaterial meditative tradition persists in the Euro-American cultural imagination. This volume calls attention to the vast range of "stuff" in Zen by highlighting the material abundance and iconic range of the Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku sects in Japan. Chapters on beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes, and even retail commodities in America all shed new light on overlooked items of lay and monastic practice in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Nine authors from the cognate fields of art history, religious studies, and the history of material culture analyze these "Zen matters" in all four senses of the phrase: the interdisciplinary study of Zen's matters (objects and images) ultimately speaks to larger Zen matters (ideas, ideals) that matter (in the predicate sense) to both male and female practitioners, often because such matters (economic considerations) help to ensure the cultural and institutional survival of the tradition. Zen and Material Culture expands the study of Japanese Zen Buddhism to include material inquiry as an important complement to mainly textual, institutional, or ritual studies. It also broadens the traditional purview of art history by incorporating the visual culture of everyday Zen objects and images into the canon of recognized masterpieces by elite artists. Finally, the volume extends Japanese material and visual cultural studies into new research territory by taking up Zen's rich trove of materia liturgica and supplementing the largely secular approach to studying Japanese popular culture. This groundbreaking volume will be a resource for anyone whose interests lie at the intersection of Zen art, architecture, history, ritual, tea ceremony, women's studies, and the fine line between Buddhist materiality and materialism.
Author: Edward L. Shaughnessy
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231533306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
In recent years, three ancient manuscripts relating to the Yi jing (I Ching), or Classic of Changes, have been discovered. The earliest—the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi—dates to about 300 B.C.E. and shows evidence of the text's original circulation. The Guicang, or Returning to Be Stored, reflects another ancient Chinese divination tradition based on hexagrams similar to those of the Yi jing. In 1993, two manuscripts were found in a third-century B.C.E. tomb at Wangjiatai that contain almost exact parallels to the Guicang's early quotations, supplying new information on the performance of early Chinese divination. Finally, the Fuyang Zhou Yi was excavated from the tomb of Xia Hou Zao, lord of Ruyin, who died in 165 B.C.E. Each line of this classic is followed by one or more generic prognostications similar to phrases found in the Yi jing, indicating exciting new ways the text was produced and used in the interpretation of divinations. Unearthing the Changes details the discovery and significance of the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi, the Wangjiatai Guicang, and the Fuyang Zhou Yi, including full translations of the texts and additional evidence constructing a new narrative of the Yi jing's writing and transmission in the first millennium B.C.E. An introduction situates the role of archaeology in the modern attempt to understand the Classic of Changes. By showing how the text emerged out of a popular tradition of divination, these newly unearthed manuscripts reveal an important religious dimension to its evolution.
Author: Yanwu Gu
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542674
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Gu Yanwu pioneered the late-Ming and early Qing-era practice of Han Learning, or Evidential Learning, favoring practical over theoretical approaches to knowledge. He strongly encouraged scholars to return to the simple, ethical precepts of early Confucianism, and in his best-known work, Rizhi lu (Record of Daily Knowledge), he applied this paradigm to literature, government, economics, history, education, and philology. This volume includes translations of selected essays from Rizhi lu and Gu Yanwu's Shiwen Ji (Collected Poems and Essays), along with an introduction explaining the personal and political dimensions of the scholar's work. Gu Yanwu wrote the essays and poems featured in this volume while traveling across China during the decades immediately after the fall of the Ming Dynasty. They merge personal observation with rich articulations of Confucian principles and are, as Gu said, "not old coin but copper dug from the hills." Like many of his contemporaries, Gu Yanwu believed the Ming Dynasty had suffered from an overconcentration of power in its central government and recommended decentralizing authority while strengthening provincial self-government. In his introduction, Ian Johnston recounts Gu Yanwu's personal history and reviews his published works, along with their scholarly reception. Annotations accompany his translations, and a special essay on feudalism by Tang Dynasty poet and scholar Liu Zongyuan (773–819) provides insight into Gu Yanwu's later work on the subject.
Author: Vahid Paeez
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000418871
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
The importance of good documentation can build a strong foundation for any thriving organization. This reference text provides a detailed and practical treatment of technical writing in an easy to understand manner. The text covers important topics including neuro-linguistics programming (NLP), experimental writing against technical writing, writing and unity of effect, five elements of communication process, human information processing, nonverbal communication and types of technical manuals. Aimed at professionals and graduate students working in the fields of ergonomics, aerospace engineering, aviation industry, and human factors, this book: Provides a detailed and practical treatment of technical writing. Discusses several personal anecdotes that serve as real-work examples. Explores communications techniques in a way that considers the psychology of what "works" Discusses in an easy to understand language, stories, and examples, the correct steps to create technical documents.
Author: Haosheng Yang
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004310800
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
In A Modernity Set to a Pre-Modern Tune, Haosheng Yang provides an in-depth study of the classical-style poems of the most iconoclastic May Fourth Chinese writers (Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, Zhou Zuoren, Guo Moruo, and Nie Gannu) and highlights the five literary masters’ engagement with traditional lyricism as their critical response to the sociopolitical turbulence of twentieth-century China. This study challenges the bias against classical forms as allegedly outdated modes incapable of representing modern reality in current Chinese literary history. Yang’s fascinating book positions modern Chinese literature’s formalistic nonlinearity, representational experiences, and aspiration for a new voice through an old form as factors that are all crucial to exploring more fully the blurred boundary between the traditional and the modern.
Author: Guanzhong Luo
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231544731
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
In this Ming-era novel, historical narrative, raucous humor, and the supernatural are interwoven to tell the tale of an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Song dynasty. A poor young girl meets an old woman who gives her a magic book that allows her to create rice and money. Her father, terrified that his daughter's demonic nature might be discovered, marries her off. Forced to flee, she and others with supernatural abilities find themselves in the midst of a grotesque version of a historical uprising, in which facts are intermingled with slapstick humor and wild fictions. Attributed to the writer Luo Guanzhong, Quelling the Demons' Revolt is centered on the events of the rebellion led by Wang Ze in 1047–48. But it is a distorted, humorous version, in which Wang Ze's lieutenants show up as a comical peddler and a mysterious Daoist priest and a celebrated warrior appears despite having died many years earlier. Rather than fantastic adventures and supernatural marvels, the author points to human vanities and fixations as well as social injustice, warning of the vulnerability of any pursuit of order in a world plagued by demonic forces as well as mundane corruption. Although the story takes place long before the era in which it was written, ultimately Quelling the Demons' Revolt is the story of the Ming dynasty in Song masquerade, presciently warning of the dynasty's downfall. The novel is divided into chapters, but in many ways it is an arrangement of self-contained stories that draw on vernacular storytelling. This translation offers English-speaking readers a spirited example of social critique combined with caustic humor from the era of Luo Guanzhong.
