Authorial presence in some pre-Buddhist Chinese texts

Présence d’un auteur dans quelques textes chinois pré-bouddhiques

Christoph Harbsmeier

p. 220-254

Résumé

L’autoréférence est attestée en Chine dès le iiie siècle avant notre ère, avec le poète Qu Yuan, qui se met en scène lui-même. Néanmoins, il n’est pas évident que ce soit le cas pour les textes des penseurs. Les pronoms de la première personne qu’on trouve dans le Laozi peuvent correspondre aussi bien à un collectif qu’à un singulier ; dans la plupart des passages cités, il semble raisonnable de les interpréter comme des singuliers, mais la validité de ce choix n’est pas démontrable. On relève dans le Zhuangzi des pronoms qui renvoient sans ambiguïté à la première personne du singulier, mais s’ils désignent le personnage qui donne son nom à l’ouvrage, Zhuangzi, celui-ci n’est pas pour autant posé comme étant l’auteur.
C. Harbsmeier analyse de nombreuses citations. Pour conclure, il distingue cinq degrés de présence de l’auteur dans les textes chinois antérieurs à l’introduction du bouddhisme : 1) propos rapportés d’un auteur s’adressant à un public physiquement présent [ex. : les Entretiens de Confucius ] ; 2) l’auteur présumé, dont le nom constitue le titre du livre, est difficile à situer ; on ne connaît ni les dates ni les circonstances de son existence [ex. : Laozi] ; 3) il y a un « je » qui se présente explicitement comme le créateur de textes, adressés à un public indéfini [ex. : Qu Yuan] ; 4) il y a un « je » qui se présente comme auteur et assortit son texte de remarques éditoriales [ex. : Hanfei] ; 5) il y a un « je » qui se présente comme le rédacteur de certains passages et le compilateur d’un ensemble constituant un livre [ex. : Sima Qian].
Les traducteurs qui donnent à l’auteur une présence qu’il n’a pas dans le texte original commettent une faute herméneutique.


Texte intégral

1Qu Yuan Image 1.jpg (ca. 343 – ca. 277 BC) is often celebrated as the first Chinese poet who put his name to his work. And there certainly is no reticence about the first person in the poem, “Encountering Sorrow”, which is generally attributed to him. Looking through the 374 lines of the Lisao Image 2.jpg, I count no less than 74 occurrences of the first-person pronouns wo Image 3.jpg, wu Image 4.jpg, yu Image 5.jpg, zhen Image 6.jpg, yu Image 7.jpg. The grammatical variety of first-person pronouns in this text is unique in ancient Chinese literature as far as I have been able to ascertain. The grammatical distinctions between these pronouns are interesting and important, but they need not concern us here, except that we note that the first two may be singular or plural in reference, whereas the others always refer to the first person singular.

2Qu Yuan is communicative in a still more personal mode where the first-person pronoun (very often yu Image 8.jpg) is no longer just an appended poetic signature at the end of a poem:

Image 9.jpg No matter that no one understands me,
Image 10.jpg [I] truly keep the sweet fragrance of my mind.
Image 11.jpg High towered the lofty hat on my head;
Image 12.jpg The longest of girdles dangles from my waist.
(
Chuci, Lisao 117 ff.1)

3Even when there is no Chinese pronoun present (the non-bold pronouns), it remains somehow significant that an English translation (like that of Hawkes 1959, from which I have quoted) will naturally introduce it where it is not there in the original. On the other hand, in a context like the present one, one should probably not allow oneself the licence to introduce first-person pronouns where there are none. In any case, there can be no doubt that this poetry is strongly ego-centered, not only in the sense of the second couplet, but particularly in the sense of the remarkable first couplet. And Qu Yuan does speak of his inner life as quite separate from what is uttered:

Image 14.jpg Keeping my feelings unexpressed.

Image 15.jpg how can / live forever in such a state?

(Chuci, Lisao 258.)

4Note the variation between zhen Image 16.jpg and yu Image 17.jpg as first-person pronouns.

Image 18.jpg Who understands my innermost feelings?

(Chuci, Lisao 140.)

5Given the traditional interpretation of his poetry, it is not surprising that Qu Yuan had a most profound impact on the history of authorship and personal expressiveness in China. His influence went beyond poetry. Consider the case of the Laozi in this connection.

Authorial presence, and the first-person pronouns in Laozi and Zhuangzi

6Traditionally, there was a division of labour in ancient China between the person who uses the knife or the brush to inscribe texts on various materials and the person who creates the texts that specialists in writing write down. Writing was originally a specialised craft and it remained a menial, often an anonymous task. The function of the editor/compiler was separate both from that of the originator of the linguistic content of the text and from that of the person responsible for the production of a given inscribed material object.

7No overall author asserts his persistent authorial presence as a writer in the Laozi Image 19.jpg, although there are many statements in the text which use first-person pronouns. The Laozi is an acroamatic text. The first thing to note is that, unlike the Zhuangzi Image 20.jpg, the Laozi never uses the unambiguously non-plural first-person pronouns yu Image 21.jpg or Image 22.jpg. There is no preface in the book. There is no postface. How exactly are we to understand the first-person pronouns in the Laozi? I want to study this question afresh in the context of the ethnography of literary communication in ancient China.

8Some basic observations are hard to illustrate simply because they concern absences. For example, if we restrict our attention to first-person pronouns that refer to the auctor2 of a text, then it turns out that forms like “I think that”, “I suspect that”, “I feel that”, “I assume that”, “I presume that”, “I expect that”, “I presuppose that”, “I posit that”, “I maintain that”, “I argue that”, “I contend that”, “I suppose that”, “I deny that”, are interestingly rare in many pre-Buddhist Chinese texts. (A striking exception is the Shangshu Image 23.jpg, which makes regular use of nian Image 24.jpg and si Image 25.jpg, with sentential complements to mean something like “think that”.) The proper form of denying something is simply to say bu ran Image 26.jpg “it is not so”, which is couched in an objective mode where the author is not part of the picture he paints. The preferred form is object language. In memorials and the like, it has always been common to say things like “I hope that”, “I beg (you) that”, and so on.

9The first, simple, task must be to assemble the evidence, to see how the authorial “I” is used. We need to know what kinds of things are predicated in our texts of the authorial “I”. I start out with the traditional Wang Bi Image 27.jpg text, consulting the variants in Shima Kunio’s wonderful edition of 1973 and collating Gao Ming 1996 for the versions of the text excavated at Mawangdui Image 28.jpg, and try to provide painfully literal translations.3 By highlighting the alternative “I/we”, I am not suggesting that there is serious doubt, in each case, whether one should choose one reading or the other. I am only drawing attention to a problem area for translation which is easily – indeed pervasively – overlooked in the translations I have seen.

Image 29.jpg, What other men teach,
Image 30.jpg, I/we also teach it:
Image 31.jpg, The strong and the violent one,
Image 32.jpg does not come to his natural death.
Image 33.jpg I/we shall make this the beginning Image 34.jpg of teaching.
(
Laozi 42, Gao Ming 1996: 33.)

10Here the author chooses to conform with the others: he reflects on his teaching as compared to that of others. He comments on his own, personal, starting point in teaching. He takes a stance which he explicitly relates to himself. But does he pose as the writer of these lines? We note that there is no Laozi yue Image 35.jpg to introduce the chapters or saying any-where in the text. This is the decisive difference to texts like the Mencius or the Wenzi Image 36.jpg. The question then is whether the case of the Laozi is one of omission of something that is understood, namely Laozi yue Image 37.jpg or whether we have a genuinely different and new form in which a writer speaks in his own name without an intermediate compiling redactor. Moreover, we need to ask exactly what it is that prevents us from taking the first-person pronouns in the plural as “we”.

11Keeping questions of this order in mind, I shall now consider the rest of the relevant evidence:

Image 38.jpg The softest thing in the world,
Image 39.jpg Crushes against the hardest thing in the world,
Image 40.jpg The non-existant enters where there is no space.
Image 41.jpg Therefore I/we know that the non-action has an advantage.
Image 42.jpg The teaching without words,
Image 43.jpg And the advantage of non-action,
Image 44.jpg Few in the world come to apprehend it.
(
Laozi 4, Gao Ming 1996: 37.)

12Here Laozi distinguishes between what he presents as objective observations about the softest thing in the world and about the non-existant. Then he goes on to what he presents as an explicitly subjective deduction: he says wu shiyi zhi Image 45.jpg “therefore I/we know”. He does not simply say gu Image 46.jpg “therefore, thus”. Is this really Laozi’s psychological and autobiographic report on himself? It seems that we know far too little about the author’s person for that sort of personal psycho-logical report to have a plausible psychological context.

13There is no internal reason in the text why we should not be able to read this as: “therefore we know”. In any case, since the text tells us next to nothing about this “I”, it would not seem to matter whether it could be understood as a collective first-person pronoun.

Image 47.jpg The sage has no constant [heart/] mind,
Image 48.jpg He has the people’s [hearts/] minds as his own.
Image 49.jpg The good one, I/we treat him as good;
Image 50.jpg And the bad one I/we also treat him as good,
Image 51.jpg So he obtains goodness.
Image 52.jpg The trustworthy one, I/we trust him,
Image 53.jpg And the untrustworthy I/we also trust him,
Image 54.jpgSo he obtains trust.
Image 55.jpg The sage’s attitude to the world is [contracted/] self-restrained
Image 56.jpg For the sake of the world he muddles his [heart/] mind.
Image 57.jpg The people all direct their ears and eyes to him,
Image 58.jpg° And the sage treats them all as children.
(
Laozi 49, Gao Ming 1996: 59 has no first-person pronouns here.)

14One might insist that Laozi considers the publicly, generally, recognized “good ones”, and he contrasts his own subjective attitude. He takes an independant, a “private” stance. But there is another possibility. The “I” of the text may refer to the sage, not to Laozi. In that case, we would have a case of unmarked direct speech. The rhetorical form here would be remarkable. The text would pass imperceptibly from report to direct speech and back to report.

Image 59.jpg° What is well planted will not be pulled up.
Image 60.jpg° What is well embraced will not be pulled away.
Image 61.jpg° When sons and grandsons with it [i.e. the Way] sacrifice, it will
never cease.
Image 62.jpg Cultivate it in the person,
Image 63.jpg° And the inner Power will be true.
Image 64.jpg Cultivate it in the family,
Image 65.jpg° And the inner Power will be abundant
Image 66.jpg Cultivate it in the village,
Image 67.jpg° And the inner Power will be durable.
Image 68.jpg Cultivate it in the state,
Image 69.jpg° And the inner Power will be ample.
Image 70.jpg Cultivate it in the world,
Image 71.jpg° And the inner Power will be universal.
Image 72.jpg’ Hence by aid of your own person you should [observe/] judge [other] persons,
Image 73.jpg’ By aid of your own family judge [other] families;
Image 74.jpg’ By aid of your own village judge [other] villages;
Image 75.jpg’ By aid of your own state judge [other] states;
Image 76.jpg° By aid of the world judge the world.
Image 77.jpg How do I/we know that the world is like this?
Image 78.jpg° By aid of the above.
(
Laozi 54, cf. Laozi 21, Gao Ming 1996: 88.)

15The text presents a long list of assertions, but then there is the sudden apparently personal question: “How do I/we know that the world is as I/ we describe it?” The question refers the reader back to the chapter he has just read to find the justification. This rhetorical figure recurs several times in the book. But in some cases, the metatextual question is answered in what follows so that ci Image 79.jpg must be taken cataphorically as “what follows”:

Image 80.jpg By open correctness one governs a state,
Image 81.jpg’ By covert strategems one carries on war,
Image 82.jpg° And by making nothing one’s business one seizes the realm.
Image 83.jpg Whereby do I/we know that this is so?
Image 84.jpg° By the following:
Image 85.jpg If there are many prohibitions in the realm,
Image 86.jpg° Then the people will get the poorer for it.
Image 87.jpg If the people have many instruments of profit,
Image 88.jpg° Then the state will get the more darkened for it.
Image 89.jpg If the people have many skills and tricks,
Image 90.jpg° Then the strange implements will increase.
Image 91.jpg The more laws and ordinances are made widely known,
Image 92.jpg° The more thieves and malefactors there will be.
Image 93.jpg Therefore the Sage says:
Image 94.jpg When I/we have no actions,
Image 95.jpg° Then the people will be transformed of themselves.
Image 96.jpg When I/we love stillness,
Image 97.jpg° Then the people will be corrected of themselves.
Image 98.jpg When I/we make nothing my business,
Image 99.jpg° Then the people will be enriched of themvelves.
Image 100.jpg If I/we have no [extravagant] desires,
Image 101.jpg° Then the people turn to simplicity of themselves.
(
Laozi 57, Gao Ming 1996: 102 ff.)

16There is no internal evidence in the text that prevents us from translating “how do we know that this is so?”. The other first-person pronouns are irrelevant because they are part of direct speech.

Image 102.jpg All in the world call my/our Way great.
Image 103.jpg° But it appears to be unlike [others].
Image 104.jpg° Just because it is great, therefore it appears to be unlike [others].
Image 105.jpg’ If it were like [others],
Image 106.jpg° Then a long time ago it would have counted as slight.
Image 107.jpg I/we have three treasures
Image 108.jpg : And hold and guard them:
Image 109.jpg’ The first is kindliness.
Image 110.jpg’ The second is frugality.
Image 111.jpg° The third is not to dare to be the foremost in the world.
Image 112.jpg’ I am kindly, and therefore I am capable of courage,
Image 113.jpg’ I am frugal, then therefore capable of liberality,
Image 114.jpg I do not dare to be the foremost in the world,
Image 115.jpg° Therefore I can become the leader of “instruments”.
Image 116.jpg’ Now to reject kindliness and go on to be courageous,
Image 117.jpg’ To reject frugality and to go on to be liberal,
Image 118.jpg’ To reject being hindmost and go on to come first,
Image 119.jpg° That means death.
Image 120.jpg’ Now as for kindliness, if you go to battle with it you will win,
Image 121.jpg° If you fight a defensive battle with it you will be safe.
Image 122.jpg’ If Heaven wants to save someone,
Image 123.jpg° Through his kindliness it protects him.
(
Laozi 67, Gao Ming 1996: 158.)

17Laozi comments on public opinion. He then goes on to identify certain appearances that are liable to arise with respect to his person. At first thought, it seems most implausible to understand the first-person pronouns here collectively and translate them as “we”. Laozi adds a rather personal comment: It is precisely because he is indeed great that he is unlike others. Laozi is aware of the uniqueness of the sage in general, and of his own uniqueness. The crucial notion is that of du Image 124.jpg (literally: “alone”) But there is nothing in these texts to suggest that what we have here is writing rather than a saying by Laozi. And, on reflection, we had better be entirely clear what the internal explicit evidence is against taking the personal pronouns in the plural. “We are the only ones” is logically as well formed as “I alone”. Why exactly are we sure that we have an individual “I” speaking to us?

Image 125.jpg Those who [use weapons/] carry on wars have a saying:
Image 126.jpg° We dare not be the host but would rather be the guest.
Image 127.jpg° We dare not advance one inch but would rather withdraw one foot.
Image 128.jpg° This is called moving where there is no march,
Image 129.jpg° Rolling up one’s sleeves where there is no arm,
Image 130.jpg° Attacking where there are no enemies,
Image 131.jpg° Grasping where there are no weapons.
Image 132.jpg° Among disasters none is greater than underrating the enemy.
Image 133.jpg° If we underrate the enemy, we come close to losing mylour treasures.
Image 134.jpgThus hostile armies are pitched against each other,
Image 135.jpg° Then those who feel grief will conquer.
(
Laozi 69, Gao Ming 1996: 168.)

18It looks as if, at the end of this passage, it is made clear that the whole piece should be read as a text with a personal touch. “If I underrate the enemy I come close to losing my treasures.” This must surely refer back to formulations like those in chapter 67 if it is to be comprehensible. But there still is that – albeit remote – possibility of a collective first-person pronoun.

Image 136.jpg’ If I/we greatly had wisdom,
Image 137.jpg’ And were to travel on the great Way,
Image 138.jpg° I/we would only fear paths leading astray.
Image 139.jpg° The great Way is level and easy,
Image 140.jpg’ But people love by-paths.
Image 141.jpg’ The [princely] courts are well kept,
Image 142.jpg’ But the fields are all weed covered,
Image 143.jpg° And the granaries are empty.
Image 144.jpg’ People wear pattemed colourful clothes,
Image 145.jpg’ And on their belts they have sharp swords.
Image 146.jpg’ They are filled with food and drink,
Image 147.jpg° And of precious wares they have a surplus.
Image 148.jpg° This is called the boasting of thieves.
Image 149.jpg° It is indeed not in accordance with the Way!
(
Laozi 53, Gao Ming 1996: 79.)

19Laozi sets out with a reflection in which he imagines himself in a certain situation, and he is surprised that other people behave differently, “love by-paths”. At the end of this passage, there is no need to say that the person who is calling this “the boasting of thieves” is primarily Laozi himself. The “I” does not, in this chapter, speak explicitly as an individual writing the chapter.

20It seems unnatural to translate the wo Image 150.jpg as “we” here: the reflection seems almost on a personal level. And yet: can we exclude the possibility that the text speaks of the collective attitude of a group? What are the decisive grounds for this?

21That possibility becomes even more remote as we turn to the next relevant chapter:

Image 151.jpgMy/our words are very easy to understand,
Image 152.jpg° And they are very easy to practise.
Image 153.jpgBut in the whole world no one can understand them,
Image 154.jpg° And no one can practise them.
Image 155.jpgThese words have their ancestry,
Image 156.jpg° And the [Laozi’s]deeds have their guiding principle.
Image 157.jpg’ It is because people have no understanding,
Image 158.jpg° Therefore they do not understand me/us.
Image 159.jpg’ Those who understand me/us are few,
Image 160.jpg° But those who take me/us as their model are prominent.
Image 161.jpg° Therefore the sage is clad in sack-cloth, and his jewel he hides in his bosom.
(
Laozi 70, Gao Ming 1996: 173.)

22Laozi speaks here as the author of words. We do not know whether these were written or spoken. He reflects on their effect on the world. Laozi is confident about his words and deeds: “These words have their ancestry. [My] deeds have their guiding principle.” Then we get a direct piece of personal information on his real worry: lack of general recognition. At the same time a proud assertion: “Those [presumably few] who take me as their model are prominent.” Without humility, Laozi subsumes himself under the concept of the sage: we are given to understand that his position is a humble one, limiting him to sack-cloth clothes.

23Exactly why do we exclude “our words”? Exactly why do we exclude “Therefore they do not understand us”, “Those who understand us are few”. What exactly do we know about this “I” that makes the distinction important?

24The isolation of the wo Image 162.jpg comes out forcefully in the following:

Image 163.jpg° Discard learning and there will be no worry.
Image 164.jpg’ Between “Yes” and “Nay”,
Image 165.jpg? How great is the distance?
Image 166.jpg’ Between good and bad,
Image 167.jpg? How large is the distance?
Image 168.jpg’ He of whom others are in awe-struck fear,
Image 169.jpg° He must be in awe-struck fear of others.
Image 170.jpg° Waxing, it has not reached its limit.
Image 171.jpgThe common people look happy,
Image 172.jpgAs if enjoying a tailao sacrifice,
Image 173.jpg° And as if ascending a tower in spring.
Image 174.jpgI/we alone am/are still, with no sign of anything yet,
Image 175.jpg; Like a baby that has not yet started to smile.
Image 176.jpg° I am despondent, like someone who has nowhere to seek refuge.
Image 177.jpg’ The common people all have affluence,
Image 178.jpg° I/we alone am/are like someone who is left out.
Image 179.jpgI/we have a stupid man’s heart.
Image 180.jpg° All confused I am/we are, but the vulgar people are bright,
Image 181.jpg; I/we alone am/are all dull and dark.
Image 182.jpg’ The common people are astute,
Image 183.jpg° I/we alone am/are depressed.
Image 184.jpg The common people all have their purposes,
Image 185.jpg° And I/we alone am/are foolish and rustic.
Image 186.jpgI/we alone am/are [Mawangdui: wish to be] different from others,
Image 187.jpg° And I/we set store by receiving nourishment from the Mother (i.e. the Way).
(
Laozi 20, Gao Ming 1996: 319.)

25The hoi polloi of the Greeks have their perfect equivalent in the zhong ren Image 188.jpg “the common crowd”. The pose of the thinker is a sentimental, tragic one: we have a case of the self-satisfied, inspired melancholy of the genius whose genius consists in feeling stupid. His stupidity arises from the fact that he does not take for granted the pleasures and values that the common crowd live by.

26But how exactly do we decide that this is not a collective alienation?

27One point on which Laozi, the sage, feels stupid and confused is that of terminology for his most important concepts. He does not say that there are no appropriate concepts, he describes the psychology of nomenclature. “I don’t know its family name.” Of course he knows that concepts do not have family names. We have deliberate personification of the central concepts. Not only is it described as “the Mother”, and so forth, we also have a playful refusal to tie important concepts to words. Playful it may appear, but it is not jocular in the spirit of Zhuangzi.

Image 189.jpg’ There was a something achieved in chaos,
Image 190.jpg° And it was born before Heaven and Earth.
Image 191.jpg’ Quiet, empty, standing alone it does not change,
Image 192.jpg’ It completes its orbits. is never exposed to danger.
Image 193.jpg° One may regard it as the mother of the world.
Image 194.jpgI/we do not know its/her name.
Image 195.jpg° If forced to give it an appellation I/we say: “the Way”.
Image 196.jpg° And if forced to give it a style I/we say: “the Great”.
Image 197.jpg° The Great is called “the Receding”.
Image 198.jpg° The Receding is called “the Far Away”.
Image 199.jpg° The Far Away is called “the Returning”.
Image 200.jpg Thus the Way is great,
Image 201.jpgHeaven is great,
Image 202.jpgEarth is great,
Image 203.jpg° And Man is also great.
Image 204.jpg’ Within the confines of space there are four Great Ones,
Image 205.jpg° And Man occupies one of these places.
Image 206.jpg’ Man takes Earth as his model,
Image 207.jpg’ The Earth takes Heaven as her model,
Image 208.jpg’ Heaven takes the Way as its model,
Image 209.jpg° And the Way takes what is naturally so as its model.
(
Laozi 25, Gao Ming 1996: 350.)

28At certain points it is as if Laozi personalises certain general observations and makes them into a part of his personal conviction rather than an objective wisdom.

Image 210.jpg’ The one who intends and wishes to capture the world and work for this,
Image 211.jpg° I/we can see that he definitely will not succeed.
Image 212.jpg’ The world is a daemonic object,
Image 213.jpg’ And it cannot be manipulated.
Image 214.jpg’ He who manipulates it will ruin it,
Image 215.jpg° And he who holds onto it will lose it.
Image 216.jpg As for creatures, some choose a path, others follow,
Image 217.jpg Some breathe lightly, others heavily,
Image 218.jpg Some are strong, others weak,
Image 219.jpg° Some break things to pieces, others are broken into pieces.
Image 220.jpg Therefore the sage eschews excessiveness,
Image 221.jpgHe eschews luxury,
Image 222.jpg° And he eschews grandeur.
(
Laozi 29, Gao Ming 1996: 377.)

29But how exactly are we sure that the insight here is not a collective one: “We can see...”?

30Even within the context of Taoist “metaphysics” there is, occasion-ally, what we are inclined to read as a characteristic personal touch. Laozi declares his philosophy of life not as an impersonal doctrine but as a personal strategy:

Image 223.jpg’ The Way constantly practises non-action.
Image 224.jpg° And there is nothing it does not get done.
Image 225.jpg’ If lords and kings were able to keep to it,
Image 226.jpg° Then the myriad creatures would be transformed of themselves.
Image 227.jpg’ If when there is transformation desires arise,
Image 228.jpg° Then I/we shall restrain it with the simplicity of the Nameless.
Image 229.jpg’ Given the simplicity of the Nameless
Image 230.jpg° Then one surely will be free from desires.
Image 231.jpg’ If one is free from desires and thus gains peace.
Image 232.jpg° Then the world will be at peace of itself.
(
Laozi 37, Gao Ming 1996: 425-426.)

31There are cases when we are not inclined to take the first-person pronoun in a strict referential sense: we are tempted to translate “we” or “one”. There is an important question of what the stylistic force of this is; whether we should not feel constrained to reproduce the Chinese effect by retaining the “I” so that we get a much more lively rendering:

Image 233.jpg’ Favour and disgrace are like something frightening,
Image 234.jpg° And honours as well as great calamities are [transient] like the body.
Image 235.jpg What do we mean by “favour and disgrace are like something frightening”?
Image 236.jpg° Favour is the lowliest thing.
Image 237.jpg’ When you get it you still get frightened,
Image 238.jpg° And when you lose it your still get frightened.
Image 239.jpg° This is what we mean by “favour and disgrace are something frightening”.
Image 240.jpg What do we mean by “honours as well as great calamities are [transient] like the body”?
Image 241.jpg The reason why one suffers great calamities,
Image 242.jpg° is because one has a body.
Image 243.jpg’ When one gets to the point that one has no body,
Image 244.jpg What calamity is there for one?
Image 245.jpg’ Therefore someone who is so honoured that he takes his body to be the world,
Image 246.jpg° One can still entrust the realm to.
Image 247.jpg’ Someone who is so stingy that he takes his body to be the world,
Image 248.jpg° One can still entrust the realm to.
(
Laozi 13, Gao Ming 1996: 278 has only two first-person pronouns.)

32The explicit pronouns wo Image 249.jpg and wu Image 250.jpg are common in the Laozi, but some points are clear:

  1. The unambiguously singular first-person pronouns are absent in the Laozi;

  2. <#ITALIQUES#></#ITALIQUES#>There is no first-person pronoun that refers to the author of the text as engaged in the composition or production of that very text. (There is one reference to wu yan Image 251.jpg “my/our words”, in chapter 70, but these are not the concrete words of the book we have. The Mawangdui version in chapter 25, Gao Ming 1996: 350, Image 252.jpg “when pushed [to give it a name] I/we call it great”, does not change this picture: what is being talked about is general language policy, not concrete formulation of the Laozi text.)

  3. Whereas the first-person pronouns are common in many chapters, none of them are autobiographic uses, so that even if we take them in the first-person, the self-references yield no biographical information except that the Way of person/s involved was widely regarded as great (ch. 70).

  4. The explicit “you” referring to or appealing to the reader is completely absent in the Laozi. This is a crucial point on which I want to dwell.

33Zi Image 253.jpg “you”, or other words with this kind of meaning, never refer to the reader in Chinese prose literature. Direct address is to the listener, or to the recipient of letters, memorials and the like. In ancient China this form was not transferred to larger-scale books. These, unlike their Roman counterparts, do not have overtly addressed addressees. For example, the following has to be within the scope of direct speech.

Image 254.jpg; Image 255.jpg° Confucius and you are all dreams. And I calling you a dream is also a dream. (Zhuangzi 2.)

34There is no clear evidence that Zhuangzi addressed his readership with a second-person pronoun. But somehow one would not be surprised if one found an example where he did. We shall return to this question of the explicitly addressed public at several points below.

35We must now remember that yu Image 256.jpgI”, like yu Image 257.jpg “I” are unambiguously singular. The phrase yu yi ren Image 258.jpg “I, the single person”, is current in early Zhou literature. And the pronoun would be singular even without the addition of yi ren Image 259.jpg. Sima Qian regularly uses unambiguously singular first-person pronouns, and so does Chuci.

The case of the Zhuangzi

36The following could not, according to the rules of pre-Han Chinese rhetoric as I understand them at this stage, involve Zhuangzi addressing his reader, except if we assume that breaking rhetorical rules is exactly what we would expect of Zhuangzi.

Image 260.jpg
You and I having been made to argue over alternatives, if it is you not I that wins, is it really you who are on to it, I who am not. If it is I not you that wins, is it really I who am on to it, you who are not? Is one of us on to it and the other of us not? Or are both of us on to it and both of us not? (
Zhuangzi 2, tr. Graham 1981: 60.)

37In his translation Graham takes Zhuangzi to be addressing the reader as “you”. This is plausible for a Westemer and perhaps to westemised modem Chinese, but such a reference is exceedingly rare according to the rhetorical conventions of pre-Han Chinese. Most modem punctuated editions (except Guan Feng Image 261.jpg) will take this to be part of Chang Wuzi’s speech, in which case there is no reference to the reader of the book. We need a set of neat examples of the reader being addressed by ruo Image 262.jpg (“if”) before such an interpretation begins to be plausible. Words like zi Image 263.jpg “you” can-not refer to the reader of a book, only to the listener within a story, or to the addressee of a letter or memorial.

38This is the general rule throughout pre-Buddhist literature. And yet Zhuangzi can address his readership in an unusually communicative chapter like “Rifling Trunks”, thus demonstrating that there is nothing somehow completely unthinkable in addressing the readership. The exception shows up the element of manifest cultural choice in the rule:

Image 264.jpg?
Have you never heard of the age when inner Power was perfect? (Zhuangzi 10, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 360, tr. Watson 1968: 111, tr. Graham 1981: 209.)

39I am extremely keen to find more examples of this sort, especially in other pre-Buddhist authors.

40By comparison with the Laozi, the Zhuangzi strikes one in several ways as a much more personal book, as has been often noted. For one thing, a character by the name of Zhuangzi figures prominently in the book. For another, autobiographic first-person pronouns might seem to abound in that text. One might even want to cite to the opening of chapter 3 as a case in point:

Image 265.jpg°
Giles (1889: 48) My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit.
Graham (1981: 62) My life flows between confines, but knowledge has no confines.

41These translators take this to be an autobiographical reflection. But there are other versions:

42Watson (1968: 50) introduces a second-person pronoun: Your life has a limit but knowledge has none.

43Liu Kia-hway (1969: 46) translates, not implausibly by “human life is limited”: La vie humaine est limitée; le savoir est illimité.

44As for the translations into modem Chinese: Ye Yulin (1964: 48) is ingenious in using a form that retains the ambiguity between singular and plural: Image 266.jpg° Zhang Mosheng (1993: 135) simply has: Image 267.jpg° Chen Guying (1991: 94) freely and plausibly opts for the plural: Image 268.jpg°

45One notes, from a grammatical point of view, that, if Zhuangzi had written yu Image 269.jpg or yu Image 270.jpg, there would have been no ambiguity: Giles and Graham would have been right, everyone else would have been wrong.

46I want to investigate the varieties of the modes of first-person reference in the Zhuangzi, and ultimately I want to reconstruct a “bestiary of first-personae” in that book.

47Mostly, wo Image 271.jpg or wu Image 272.jpg “I” refers to the Zhuangzi who is a part of a story about Zhuangzi that is being told in the book that bears his name:

Image 273.jpg
I will have Heaven and Earth for my coffin and coffin shell, the sun and moon for my pair of jade discs, the stars and constellations for my pearls and beads, and the ten thousand things for my parting gifts. The furnishings for my funeral are already prepared – what is there to add. (
Zhuangzi 32; tr. Watson 1968: 361.)

48Here Zhuangzi is an embedded persona in a story, not the author of the book. I am not at this stage concerned with these cases of self-reference.

49The authorial “I” is absent throughout most of the book, but that means there is all the more reason to pay careful attention to the deviating cases. Here are apparent representative examples of the authorial “I” in the Zhuangzi:

Image 274.jpg
Is the life of man inherently confused like this? Or
am only I/are only we confused, and among the others there are those who are not confused? (Zhuangzi 2.)

50Here the author, wo Image 275.jpg, is contrasted with the others, ren Image 276.jpg, but significantly there is nothing in the context which definitely or absolutely excludes a plural reading: “or are only we confused”. The first-person pronoun may be self-referential but it is not autobiographical. It might even plausibly be taken to refer to the group constituted by the author and his intended esoteric audience. Certainly the first-person does not present himself as the writer of a whole book or any part of it.

51This is part of a quite unusual internal dialogue where Zhuangzi writes as if transcribing his inner uncertainties. This rhetorical feature is rare even within the book Zhuangzi.4

Image 278.jpg
Of the hundred joints, nine openings, six viscera all present and complete, which should I [or:
we] recognise as more kin to me than another? (Zhuangzi 2, tr. Graham 1981: 51.)

52Again, nothing excludes the plural here, but nothing particularly recommends it.

Image 279.jpg
Even the daemonic Yu could not understand you, and what am I [or:
are we] supposed to manage to do about it [i.e. how am I supposed to understand]? (Zhuangzi 2, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 56, tr. Graham 1981: 51.)

53The plural remains possible.

Image 280.jpg’ From my [or: our] point of view,
Image 281.jpg’ The starting points of goodness and humaneness,
Image 282.jpg and the path of right and wrong,
Image 283.jpg° are hopelessly confused.
Image 284.jpg How should I [or: we] be able to tell the difference.
(
Zhuangzi 2, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 79.)

Image 285.jpg How do I [or: we] know that what I call Heaven is not human?
Image 286.jpg And that what I [or: we] call human is not from Heaven?
(
Zhuangzi 6, beginning; ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 205.)

Image 287.jpg’ The great clod supports me/us with a body,
Image 288.jpg’ it bothers me/us with life,
Image 289.jpg’ it gives me/us peace in old age,
Image 290.jpg° it gives me/us rest in death.
Image 291.jpg Therefore my/our considering life as good,
Image 292.jpg° is exactly the reason why I/we consider death as good.
(
Zhuangzi 6, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 223.)

54One might argue that the author relates in a personal way to the Way. There is an apparent contrast with the Laozi. But one might still go on to insist that all these may be plausibly read in the plural. What this means is that even when read in the singular, they have no truly personal, individual ring to them in this context. We still do not have the autobiographical “I”, even less the authorial “I”.

55Paradoxically, the authorial “I” is more manifestly present in the Zhuangzi without any overt pronoun or pseudo-pronoun whatsoever:

Image 293.jpg’ However,
Image 294.jpg let [me!] try to say it:
Image 295.jpg? How do I [or: we] know that what I [or: we] call knowing is not ignorance?
Image 296.jpg? How do I [or: we] know that what I [or: we] call ignorance is not knowing?
(Zhuangzi 2, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 79.)

Image 297.jpg Let me try to say it:
Image 298.jpg° Heaven practices non-action and because of that becomes clean.
Image 299.jpg° Earth practices non-action and because of that becomes restful.
(Zhuangzi 18, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 642.)

56The object of qing Image 300.jpg “beg”, if we do take it as a semi-grammaticalised transitive verb, would have to be the reader in this passage. The author seems to make a polite request addressed to his readership.

57The phrase recurs almost literally:

Image 301.jpg This may be so, but let me try to explain this.
(
Zhuangzi 2, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 70.)

58The possibility, in English, to translate “let us try to explain” is logically quite irrelevant. The point is that the author, as he is in the process of composing his texts, is the subject of the verb phrase qing chang yan zhi Image 302.jpg. We have clear instances here of an authorial persona of the text under discussion being explicitly present in that text.

Image 303.jpg° Let me try to explain this.
(
Zhuangzi 10, ed. Wang Shumin 1988: 349.)

59In this coherent set of examples, it is tempting to consider that this particular use of changshi Image 304.jpg represents something of a personal style of the writer Zhuangzi, a feature that was then imitated by his imitators in the book. There are similar well-known cases involving speech habits of Confucius. The “trying” is not a collective trying, it is not a collective but an individual pose, a pose close to, but not identical with, the traditional Western dubitatio, “hesitation”.

60Authorial presence is a matter of degree, and it will not come as a surprise to anyone that there is more of it in the Zhuangzi than in the Laozi. Large parts of the book Zhuangzi have a presupposed omniscient and ultimately impersonal sage “I” as the authorial persona. But there is another note in the Zhuangzi. It turns out that the question of the rhetoric of authorship in the Zhuangzi is sometimes extremely complex and almost post-modern.

61I shall consider the opening lines of the first chapter of the book as an example. The first thing mentioned is a bei ming Image 305.jpg “Northern Dark”. And we only understand this reference if we realise that the author does not really intend to make a reference to any thing at all. Commentators like Sima Biao Image 306.jpg suggest that this is at the North Pole. The place is imaginary. The next thing we hear of is a fish, and the same is true of this fish. It is no use speculating whether it was a whale, as some commentators do: the thing is a figment of the writer’s poetic and philosophical imagination. Next comes a little philological scandal: the fish is called a kun Image 307.jpg “spawn, tiny baby-fish”, just as the vast sea in the North is called the tianchi Image 308.jpg “Pond of Heaven”. It is no use explaining this away as a scribal error for some name of a gigantic fish: the name is a playful figment of the author’s imagination. There is, of course, a philosophy behind this apparent incongruousness: what we must describe as a gigantic fish might still be, in a cosmic perspective, sub specie aeternitatis, a tiny fish. The author teases his congenial readership into this insight. Many later commentators were unable to enter into this world of flippant rhetoric.

62What all this complex rhetoric does, however, is to force the reader to speculate on the author’s underlying intention as opposed to the overt and covert linguistic meaning of the text. We are not told about the fish and the bird because we are invited to believe in their existence and transformation. The meaning is beyond the discourse. The text is an instrument in the hands of an author who must be focussed if the text is to be appreciated properly. The vast expanse of water that sustains the gigantic fish is referred to as a chi Image 309.jpg, “pond”: the usage is provocative, certainly not naive, but neither is it mystical in a technical sense, as we often find in the Laozi. The Zhuangzi cultivates the traditional Western rhetorical category of the aprosdoketon, “the unexpected”, sometimes to the point where one comes to expect the unexpected. Even when Zhuangzi quotes the “Jests of Qi” as an authoritative text, we suspect an authorial intention of ridiculing the insistence on references to historical authorities. What kind of a serious “authority” are the “Jests of Qi”? We read this source with suspended belief.

63Then, in an abrupt change of rhetorical perspective, the reader is faced with a short passage of philosophical poetry. The giant bird is described as ye ma Image 310.jpg, “floating vapour”, and minute dust blown about by the creator breath: the reader suspects he is hearing the Master’s Voice, Zhuangzi himself. Or does he? He has no way of being sure. Before the reader has made up his mind on this, the perspective changes radically again. Zhuangzi invites the reader to join the bird in the subjectivity of its mystical flight, to see the world through its eyes. He does this by first inviting the reader to join his own subjectivity: “Is what appears as the blue of the sky the true colour of the sky, or is it just an optical effect of distance?” When this our world appears thus to the bird, then it stops.

64We are almost metaphysically elevated. But, abruptly, the reader is brought down to earth with perfectly mundane reflections on the amount of water needed to float a boat. Parenthetically inserted into this, again, a surely trivial reflection on how mustard seed would float in a puddle: are we to take this as Zhuangzi’s serious discourse? Surely we have parody of mundane pedestrian thinking. His rhetoric keeps us guessing.

65After all this parenthetic material, Zhuangzi returns briefly to straight poetic and reasoned narrative: the bird faces south. Then, abruptly, Zhuangzi enters the psychological world of the cicada and the turtle-dove: a new change of philosophical perspective. The discourse of these little animals is entirely from their own world of undergrowth and bushes. Abruptly again, Zhuangzi goes on to an ordinary and reasonable human perspective: surely, one has to make sure that one has proper supplies according to how far one intends to travel. These little animals have a hopelessly narrow perspective. “What do they know?” Surely, small intelligence does not reach large intelligence.

66Zhuangzi’s conclusion, introduced by the potentially pompous gu yue Image 311.jpg, “therefore it is said”, is a sequence of oxymora, “contradictions in terms”, in which he rises above these various perspectives: The person with a perfectly developed self has no self; the person with spiritual achievements has no achievements; the renowned sage has no fame. Thus the momentum of the liberation from omniscient-sage mode of authorship represented in the Laozi leads not only to an occasional personal authorial presence, but to a highly complex ironie display of assumed authorial personae. This is manifest in the first chapter of the book, common in the Inner Chapters, and there are quite a few reflections of it in the rest of the book. Soon afterwards, this initial momentum was lost. There is none of it left in Huainanzi Image 312.jpg (second century bc), none in Guo Xiang Image 313.jpg (died 312 ad) or Xiang Xiu Image 314.jpg (ca. 221-309 ad), certainly none of it in the Liezi Image 315.jpg (third century ad).

67Thus, in the Zhuangzi we not only have yu yan Image 316.jpg, “attributed, fictitious words”, we have an author who assumes a whole range of voices, an author who deliberately avoids the ordinary straight mode of saying “I the author of this piece of writing am telling you, the indended reader of that piece, my current honest opinion as follows...”, the mode which is assumed throughout, for example, by Wang Chong Image 317.jpg (27 ad-ca. 100 ad). Lu Deming Image 318.jpg (ad 556-627) in his preface to the Zhuangzi comments very much to the point:

Image 319.jpg° The literary zest5 is lush and profound.
Image 321.jpg° His [seemingly] straightforward formulations are as if turned round [i.e. ironical(?)].

68In the Xunzi Image 322.jpg the typical uses of wo Image 323.jpg outside quotation is impersonal:

Image 324.jpg
Was nun solche Dinge anbelangt, wie die Pflege des eigenen Innern, ernsthaftes Bemühen um sittlichen Lebenswandel, Klärung des eigenen Wissens und Planens, trotz des Lebens im Heute nicht auch die Alten vergessen u.s.f., so hângt das alles vom Menschen persönlich (
wo) ab. (Köster 1967: 218.)

... ce sont des choses qu’on a en soi. (Xunzi 17, Kamenarovic 206.)

Image 325.jpg°
Was also [die Regierenden] selbstsüchtig horten, dient nur dem eigenen Untergang, während der Feind, falls er das Gehortete erobert, dadurch nur stärker wird. (Köster 1967: 94.)

69Knoblock posits a quotation and thus avoids a reference to the author of the Xunzi:

Thus, amassing tax revenues on my part will bring on my destruction, and my enemies by gaining my lands will be made stronger. (Xunzi 9.29; Knoblockl988,1: 98.)

70The case of wu Image 326.jpg in Xunzi is similar. The meaning is close to the impersonal “one”:

Image 327.jpg
When our thoughts are unclear we cannot quite fix affirmations or negations. So lange unsere Überlegungen nicht zu klaren Ergebnissen führen, sind wir noch nicht in der Lage, bestimmte positive oder negative Aussagen zu machen. (
Xunzi 21.68, Köster 1967: 281.)

71There is nothing personal in the following:

Image 328.jpg° Thus he who disapproves of one/me and is right is one’s/my teacher. He who approves of one/me and is right is one’s/my friend. And he who flatters one/me is one’s/my worst enemy. (Xunzi 2: 1; Knoblock 1988,1: 151.)

72Often wo Image 329.jpg must be understood impersonally or in the plural:

Image 330.jpg°
If we act according to Mozi’s
Against Music then we will cause the world to be chaotic. (Xunzi 10.)

Image 331.jpg°
What other men detest I detest also. (
Xunzi 3, end; Knoblock 1988, I: 180.)

73Other translations (Köster 1967: 28: “das verabscheue ich auch”; Kamenarovic 59: “je le déteste, moi aussi”) all invite us to read this as a personal report by Xunzi on his own attitude, whereas the Yang Liang Image 332.jpg (fl. ad 818 ) commentary, quite rightly, takes the intention to be general:

Image 333.jpg°
What the talented will desire or detest is not necessarily different from the ordinary people’s [desires and dislikes].

74There may be reason to tone down the personal touch of this by taking the wu Image 334.jpg in the plural. The personal note would certainly seem to be out of place in the context of this phrase in a way that such authorial first-person reference is not out of place in Zhuangzi 2.

75Consider, however, the following which comes closer to authorial presence:

Image 335.jpg°
Under such circumstances, then even if there is no ruin as yet,
I/we say of them that they are not in control of the world. (Xunzi 18.15; cf. Kösterl967: 226: »...so leugne ich doch nicht, daß sie noch im Besitz der Weltherrschaft waren.”)

76There are many, many other cases like Xunzi 17.81 shi xu yan ye Image 336.jpg Image 337.jpg “This is empty/insubstantial talk”, where translations like Kôster’s spuriously personalise the statement, thus distorting the impersonal mode of the original: “Ich nenne das Behauptungen von Phantasten”, “I call that the opinions of men with uncontrolled phantasies.”

The varieties of the authorial “I” in ancient Chinese literature

77The constitutive features of textuality are manifestly problematic in traditional ancient Chinese prose literature.6 (Inscriptions, letters and the like raise complex problems in their own right that are beyond my present scope.) The books we have (our textus recepti) are results of long processes of literary accretion from widely different sources. Compilation, editorial redaction, scribal, and authorial functions tended to be disconcertingly separate.

78If we were to treat such texts as written statements by an author intending to convey his thoughts to a general public (present and future), we would be making a very serious hermeneutic category mistake. Such hermeneutic category mistakes affect translation. Thus, for example, it is often directly relevant for translation that the “gentle (generalised) reader” of a book, the person addressed by the proverbial caveat lector, is practically never mentioned in all of traditional pre-Buddhist prose literature and that he certainly is not routinely addressed in any of our traditional texts of the period. One must realise that, when one interprets an author as directly addressing his audience by a second-person pronoun, one attributes to him an act of hermeneutic revolution.

79First, there is the speaker who is quoted, the context-bound “I” presented in explicit quotation, where a speaker is addressing a concrete audience that is within earshot. The Lunyu Image 338.jpg is a text that presents predominantly such context-bound quotations. But already in that text, one has to be aware that what is said may begin to be intended as de-contextualised statement, where the “I”, while physically addressing an audience within earshot, is aware that he will indirectly reach a wider audience. Confucius, Mo Di Image 339.jpg (late fifth century bc), Yan Ying Image 340.jpg (ca. 580-500 bc) and Mencius belong into this category: they are known not through writings but as the originators of dicta. In these books there is an embedded “auctorial” I. Consider the case of Mozi 15:

Image 341.jpg°…
Image 342.jpg°…
Image 343.jpg°
This speaks of matters relating to Yu. We can, then, universalize love in conduct...
This is what King Wen had accomplished. We can, then, universalize love in conduct....
This relates the deeds of King Wu. We can, then, universalize love in conduct. (
Mozi 15, tr. Mei Yi Pao 1929: 172. Compare Schmidt-Glintzer 1975: 145, who follows Mei.)

80As an interesting borderline case, one might mention the “I” presenting himself in self-quotation, as in the famous taishi gong yue Image 344.jpg “the Grand Recorder said”.

81The speaker may be more or less context bound to his concrete physical audience in his pronouncements. To varying degrees he may say things to an audience, expecting these to be remembered and repeated by his audience. The extent to which this happens in any given instance of recorded speech is crucial for correct translation and interpretation.

82Secondly, there is what – until I find a more suitable term – I call the “auctor”, the “I” presented in implicit quotation, where a book is built up from sayings implicitly attributed to a speaker, the attribution being indicated through the title of a work. The Laozi is a text that predominantly presents such quotations, which by the nature of things have to be less concretely and openly context bound than direct speech within a given historical situation would tend to be, but the utterance of which must have entered a social and intellectual context which it is often hard to reconstruct. The presumed author Laozi Image 345.jpg , of uncertain date and existence, would be such an auctor.7

83Thirdly, there is the author, the “I” presenting himself as the creator of a passage which is addressed to a certain public. To varying degrees, the author abstracts from the concrete audience he is addressing and begins to have a wider, generalised audience in mind. The eunuch Mengzi Image 346.jpg in Mao Shi Image 347.jpg 200 is a case in point, and so is Qu Yuan Image 348.jpg (ca. 343-277 bc).

84Fourthly, there is the writer, the “I” presenting himself as the person who composed a certain written document, where editorial remarks indicate the writer’s scribal intentions and show his responsibility for the scribal act. Hanfei Image 349.jpg (died 233 bc) poses as such a writer in parts of the anonymous collection HanfeiziImage 350.jpg.

85Fifthly, there is the writer-editor, the “I” presenting himself as the person who composed certain written documents and who declares himself responsible for the overall arrangement of these documents in an integrated “book” through an editorial policy and editorial remarks. Sima Qian Image 351.jpg (ca. 145 – ca. 85 bc) is a case of such a writer-editor, who even introduces cross-references to other parts of his book into his text.

86Finally, one might be tempted to introduce the compiler-editor, the “I” presenting himself as the person who is responsible for the overall arrangement of certain materials from different sources. Liu An Image 352.jpg (179-122 bc) and Lu Buwei Image 353.jpg (ca. 290-235 bc) might appear to be cases of such compiler-editors. However, it is characteristically difficult to find passages where these editors refer to themselves in the first person.

87If we now turn to the instances where a person refers to himself in some sense or another as the author of a given text, further complications arise. We have already noted the important question of whether he ever engages in a dialogue with the public reader, whether he ever dramatises this dialogue in something like the form “You might say... But I tell you...” The answer is, he does not.

88But there are important further questions concerning pre-Buddhist Chinese texts:

  1. How do writers pose for their audience: what are their standardised poses? What is the cultural register of authorial personae “masks” in pre-Buddhist China?

  2. To what extent and how do writers explicitly place passages in their writing in a personal-life autobiographic context? What is the cultural register of autobiographic contextualisation in pre-Buddhist China?

  3. To what extent do we find the fictionalisation of the authorial Self? What is the cultural register of prosopopeia?

  4. To what extent could authors explicitly address their writings to themselves? Archilochos: thyme thym’ amechanoisin pemasin kyko-menos. ... Cicero’s “Consolatio”, written as advice to himself after the death of his beloved daughter, Tullia.

  5. What is the cultural register of sustained and explicit inner conflict among writers?

  6. To what extent could authors correct their own use of language through such phrases as “or rather”? What is the cultural register of second thoughts on one’s own formulations in pre-Buddhist China?

89Questions of this order are legion. Few of them have been investigated by a “historical critical method”. Historically well-founded answers to these questions will severely restrict the range of plausible translations in all those Chinese texts where one of the grammatically possible readings would attribute to a pre-Buddhist writer authorial ploys and devices that were alien to the culture at a given stage.

90Aside from questions of historical grammar, historical lexicography, the semantics of sentences, and so on, there are crucial dimensions of the historical anthropology of literary communication which should define and limit the options translators have when approaching traditional Chinese texts. We need more than W.V.O. Quine’s Principle of Charity (interpret in such a way that a maximum of statements you interpret turn out to be true) and more than Richard Grandy’s Principle of Humanity (interpret in such a way that a maximum of the statements you interpret turn out to be consistent with each other). What we need is a Principle of Hermeneutic Austerity: Do not attribute to texts of a certain culture, time and genre semantic features and rhetorical devices that are not a plausible part of the literary communication in that culture, at that time, and in that genre. This may sound plausible to the point of triviality. It is therefore all the more surprising that this principle is so consistently overlooked in translations from classical Chinese.

Concluding remarks

91Some relevant contrasts between different varieties of authorial “I” must be distinguished. Firstly, and crucially, one has to emphasise the fact that the non-explicit authorial “I” is often much more personal and individual than the explicit authorial “I”.

92There is the important question of the scope of authorship claimed by the authorial “I”: is it a passage in a chapter, a sequence of passages or episodes, the chapter as a whole, a sequence of chapters, or a whole book?

93There is an important progression from the abstract, untensed authorial “I” which construes itself as the author of the whole text or passage to the tensed author who construes himself as being at a given stage in the production of his text.

94There is the basic difference between an author who construes his role as emotionally expressive versus the authorial “I” which poses as a transmitter of fact and judgment.

95There is the difference between the authorial “I” that construes itself as the producer of oral text versus the authorial “I” that construes itself as the author of the written text.

96There is the contrast between the authorial “I” that construes itself or poses as being in a concrete dialogue with a certain audience and the authorial “I” that simply expounds things to an uncircumscribed and unfocussed general audience.

97There is the contrast between the authorial “I” that poses as the Creator versus the author that poses as the transmitter of messages.

98There is the contrast between the authorial “I” that poses as a real historical person versus the authorial “I” that poses as an explicitly fictional character;

99There is the contrast between the authorial “I” that poses as objective versus the authorial “I” that poses as subjective.

100There is the contrast between the authorial “I” that poses as a generic, collective “I/we” versus the authorial “I” that poses as an individualistic: “I”.

101Finally, among many other distinctions along these lines, one might mention the distinction between the authorial “I” as referring to a concrete author versus the abstract philosophical “I” that no longer refers to the individual author at all but to the generalised philosophical notion of the “Self.

102I shall not continue in this recitation of relevant contrasts within the conceptual field of the authorial “I”. My point is that, unless and until the historical dynamics of the evolution of such contrasting construals of the authorial “I” in early Chinese literature is given proper close attention, unless it is closely reconstructed text by text, chapter by chapter, passage by passage, histories of early Chinese literature will omit a central feature in the evolution of early Chinese literary sensibilities. The study of this important subject, it seems to me, has barely begun.

Chinese Classical Literature: a Selected Bibliography

Chuci, “Songs of the South” (Loewe 1993: 48)

Chen Zizhan 1995: Neat critical text and excellent prose translation of the older parts of the collection, including a detailed study of what the author regards as the genuine parts of the book.

Dong Chuping 1986: Incomplete text, but interesting translations and notes.

Fu Xiren 1982: Useful edition for cursory reading: all characters are sup-plied with bopomofo transliterations, and the commentaries are concise and informative.

Hawkes 1985: With Pinyin transcriptions, improved version of the first edition of 1959.

Huang Shouqi et al. 1984: Concisely annotated useful translation.

Lei Qingyi 1994: Commentary and argumentative study of the older parts of the book. Useful supplement to Chen Zizhan’s more useful work.

Lim Boon Keng 1929: Bilingual, and a useful crib

Takeji Sadao 1964: Includes reprint of Sibubeiyao Image 354.jpg edition, which provides the early commentaries and a complete index.

Huainanzi, “The Huainan Master” (Loewe 1993: 189)

Chen Yiping 1994: Useful complete translation.

Chen Guangzhong 1993: Careful philological translation, with sparse annotation. Full philological edition by the same author is announced.

Larre et al. 1993.

Le Blanc 1985.

Liu Wendian 1969: Photographic reprint of the first edition of 1924

– 1989: Carefully punctuated, collated edition on the preceding. An indispensible edition, to be used, though, in conjunction with later editions, particularly the works of Yu Dacheng and Zhang Shuangdi.

Morgan 1934.

Wallacker 1962.

Xu Kuangyi 1995.

Yu Dacheng 1969, 2 vols.: Singularly useful set with textual notes.

Zhang Shuangdi 1996: By far the best annotated edition to date, with abundant bibliography. A philological orgy of diligence and exactitude.

Laozi, “The Old Master” (Loewe 1993: 269)

Gao Ming 1996: The best critical edition of the Mawangdui version of the text, sumptuously annotated.

Henricks 1989: Convenient edition and translation of the new manuscript finds.

Karlgren 1975: A moving document from the grand master who had declared all his life that Laozi was ultimately untranslatable.

Lau 1983: Bilingual edition of the traditional as well as the silk manuscript texts.

Shima Kunio 1973: The standard variorum edition of text and early commentaries, excluding recent manuscript finds.

Wing Tsit Chan 1963: Annotated translation with a survey of scholarship on the traditional text.

Liezi, “Master Lie” (Loewe 1993: 298)

Graham 1960: One of Graham’s finest achievements as a translator.

Wang Qiangmo 1993.

Xiao Dengfu 1990: Best edition of the text and a rich selection of its commentaries, with detailed annotations.

Yan Beiming et al. 1991: Useful complete translation.

Yang Bojun 1979: The standard critical edition.

Lunyu, “The Analects” (Loewe 1993: 313)

Cheng Shude 1990: My preferred collection of traditional textual and exegetic commentaries.

Couvreur 1950: Fluent French translation with painfully literal Latin translation systematically based on Zhu Xi’s interpretations.

Lau 1983, revised 1992: The best Western translation, but still to be used with care.

Liu Baonan 1933: Standard collection of pre-modern commentaries. Liu Baonan (1791-1855) showed remarkable philological judgement in this compilation.

Qian Mu 1987: The authoritative translation on Taiwan, often highly edifying reading.

Yang Bojun 1965: The authoritative modem Chinese translation on the mainland.

Zeng Xiujing 1991: Singularly useful collection of early commentaries gleaned from a wide variety of sources, conveniently presented.

Mozi, “Master Mo” (Loewe 1993: 336)

Li Yushu 1976: Serviceable translation.

Mei Yi Pao 1929.

Sun Yirang 1936: The old standard edition.

Wang Huanbiao 1984: Careful, annotated translation.

Wu Yujiang 1993: The new standard critical edition of the text, also available in a very beautiful interlinear version (Xinanshifandaxue 1992).

Shangshu, “Book of Official Documents” (Loewe 1993: 376)

Couvreur 1951: Very convenient traditionalist translation.

Gu Baotian 1995: Disciplined, concise edition, always useful to compare.

Jiang Hao 1990: Serviceable complete, annotated translation.

Karlgren 1950: The standard literal translation of the old parts.

Legge 1892, vol. 3: Usefully annotated and very beautifully printed.

Qu Wanli 1977: Convenient traslation, probably by a student of the grand old author.

– 1968: Masterful concise traditional annotation.

Ruan Yuan 1980, 2 vols.: Photographic reprint, conveniently collects the ancient commentaries.

Yang Renzhi 1993: Moderately useful, often careless modem annotated edition.

Shi/Shijing, “Book of Songs” (Loewe 1993: 415)

Chen Zizhan 1993: Talkative edition, with complete literal unrhyming translation. An attractive work.

Couvreur 1934: Fine French translation with painfully literal Latin paraphrase based on standard Song interpretations throughout.

Gao Heng 1980: Concise, dry modem annotation.

Karlgren 1950: The standard literal translation, curiously poetic in its prosaic literal awkwardness.

Qu Wanli 1959: Masterful traditional annotation

Ruan Yuan 1980: Photographic reprint, good source for the Mao commentaries.

Yuan Yu’an 1992: Serviceable complete, concisely annotated edition.

Xunzi, “Master Xun” (Loewe 1993: 178)

Deng Hanqing 1994: A popular plain commentary concentrating mainly on the philosophical arguments presented. A useful supplement to the more philologically orientated remaining commentaries.

Dubs 1973: Convenient bilingual version of this old translation.

Ed. Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement no. 22, 1966: Photographic reprint.

Jiang Nanhua 1995: Interesting complete version with concise annotation.

Knoblock 1988, 3 vols.: Nicely annotated, but as a translation much inferior to Köster, below.

Köster 1967.

Liang Qixiong 1973: Reprint. Concise but thoroughly creative.

Xunzi xinzhu 1979: Masterful concise annotation: a fine edition.

Yang Liuqiao 1985: Solid philological contribution in the traditional vein.

Zhuangzi, “Master Zhuang” (Loewe 1993: 56)

Balfour 1881.

Cao Chuji 1982: Very concise and quite helpful.

Chen Guying 1991: Revised version of the Taibei original edition. Perhaps the best translated version of the vast number of translations that exist.

Giles 1961 (first ed. 1889).

Graham 1981: Painfully intellectualised.

Guo Qingfan 1961: The classical edition, particularly useful for its critical edition of the old commentaries.

Ed. Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement no. 20.

Lafitte 1994.

Liu Kia-hway 1969.

Liu Jianguo 1993: Useful crib.

Ouyang Jingxian et al. 1986: Quite useful for its attention to matters of grammatical usage.

Qian Mu 1989, Preface 1962: A thoughtful, weighty traditional commentary.

Wang Shumin 1988: The best critical text, replacing, I think, the standard edition by Guo Qingfan as the most useful basic edition.

Wang Xianqian, Liu Wu 1987: Wonderful illustration of the notion of progress in traditional Chinese philology: Liu discovers vast numbers of serious mistakes in Wang.

Watson 1968: Overly smooth.

Wilhelm 1969 (reprint).

Yang Liuqiao 1991: Careful philological edition.

Zhang Gengguang 1991: Useful crib.

Zhang Mosheng 1993: Talkative and interesting rambling commentary by an intellectual.

Zhong Tai 1988: Highly original, thoughtful running commentary.

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Notes de bas de page

1 . Couplets 59-60 as translated by Hawkes 1959: 82. I believe gou Image 13.jpg must mean “truly, really” here and cannot be taken to introduce a postposed conditional clause.

2 . It is worth noting that authorship is not limited to men in ancient China: the lyrical “I” in many songs is a woman. Whether these songs, like many Frauenlieder of the German Middle Ages, were written by women, is impossible to ascertain.

3 . For the translations, compare Karlgren 1975: 1-18, which I have freely adapted to my purposes wherever desirable.

4 . See Zhuangzi 12, end, for a less spectacular but still relevant case of authorial yu Image 277.jpg.

5 . Qu Image 320.jpg “zest” is an important technical term of aesthetic appreciation.

6 . I disregard, for the time being, the complicated question of the oracle-bone inscriptions and the bronze inscriptions.

7 . I shall abandon the term “auctor” as soon as I hear of a less offensive way of putting the matter.


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