The Analects

From the literary communitys most talented translator of Chinese, a compelling, contemporary rendition of Ancient Chinas most significant work.. Confucius failed in his lifetime to rescue a crumbling civilization with his teachings, but he was to become the most influential sage in human history. Hi [...]
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From the literary communitys most talented translator of Chinese, a compelling, contemporary rendition of Ancient Chinas most significant work.. Confucius failed in his lifetime to rescue a crumbling civilization with his teachings, but he was to become the most influential sage in human history. His thought, still remarkably current, survives here in The Analects --a collection of brief aphoristic sayings that has had a deeper impact on more peoples lives over a longer period of time than any other book in human history.Highly regarded for the poetic fluency he brings to his award-winning work, David Hinton is the first twentieth-century translator to render the four central masterworks of ancient Chinese thought: Chuang Tzu, Mencius, The Analects , and Tao Te Ching . His new versions are not only inviting and immensely readable, but they also apply a much-needed consistency to key terms in these texts. Breathing new life into these classics, Hintons translations will stand as the definitive series for our era. While Confucius failed in his lifetime to rescue a crumbling civilization with his teachings, he was to become the most influential sage in human history.His thought, still remarkably current and even innovative after 2,500 years, survives here in The Analects --a collection of brief aphoristic sayings that has had a deeper impact on more peoples lives over a longer period of time than any other book in human history. Formulated in the ruins of a society that had been founded on untenable spiritualistic concepts of governance, Confuciuss philosophy postulated a humanistic social order that has survived as Chinas social ideal ever since. Beginning with the realization that society is a structure of human relationships, Confucius saw that in a healthy society this structure must be a selfless weave of caring relationships. Those caring relationships are a system of ritual that people enact in their daily lives, thus infusing the secular with sacred dimensions.Confuciuss teachings are very literary in nature. The Analects is made up of dialogues, stories, and anecdotes, always aphoristic and full of poetic turns of thought. And it is this literary dimension that makes Confucius so engaging and compelling as he builds his majestic vision of human community as an integral part of a self-generating and harmonious cosmos.Highly regarded for the poetic fluency he brings to his award-winning work, David Hinton is the first twentieth-century translator to render the four central masterworks of ancient Chinese thought: Chuang Tzu, Mencius, The Analects , and Tao Te Ching .His new versions are not only inviting and immensely readable, but they also apply a much-needed consistency to key terms in these texts. Breathing new life into these classics, Hintons translations will stand as the definitive series for our era.