Rewriting Early Chinese Texts

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Rewriting Early Chinese Texts

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Edward L. Shaughnessy - Author

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Price: $85.00
Hardcover - 296 pages

Release Date: February 2006

ISBN10: 0-7914-6643-4
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6643-8

Price: $31.95
Paperback - 296 pages

Release Date: June 2006

ISBN10: 0-7914-6644-2
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-6644-5

Price: $31.95
Electronic - 296 pages

Release Date: June 2006

ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-0-7914-8235-3

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Summary

Explores the rewriting of early Chinese texts in the wake of new archaeological evidence.

Rewriting Early Chinese Texts examines the problems of reconstituting and editing ancient manuscripts that will revise—indeed “rewrite”—Chinese history. It is now generally recognized that the extensive archaeological discoveries made in China over the last three decades necessitate such a rewriting and will keep an army of scholars busy for years to come. However, this is by no means the first time China’s historical record has needed rewriting. In this book, author Edward L. Shaughnessy explores the issues involved in editing manuscripts, rewriting them, both today and in the past.

The book begins with a discussion of the difficulties encountered by modern archaeologists and paleographers working with manuscripts discovered in ancient tombs. The challenges are considerable: these texts are usually written in archaic script on bamboo strips and are typically fragmentary and in disarray. It is not surprising that their new editions often meet with criticism from other scholars. Shaughnessy then moves back in time to consider efforts to reconstitute similar bamboo-strip manuscripts found in the late third century in a tomb in Jixian, Henan. He shows that editors at the time encountered many of the same difficulties faced by modern archaeologists and paleographers, and that the first editions produced by a court-appointed team of editors quickly prompted criticism from other scholars of the time. Shaughnessy concludes with a detailed study of the editing of one of these texts, the Bamboo Annals (Zhushu jinian), arguably the most important manuscript ever discovered in China. Showing how at least two different, competing editions of this text were produced by different editors, and how the differences between them led later scholars to regard the original edition—the only one still extant—as a forgery, Shaughnessy argues for this text’s place in the rewriting of early Chinese history.

“Edward Shaughnessy’s Rewriting Early Chinese Texts delves deeply into the unique challenges scholars face when attempting to edit and reproduce archeological texts … This comprehensive and multi-layered book offers a broad overview of the process of textual reproduction and an introduction to the main players in archeology and paleography.” — Dao

“The author is one of the few American scholars equipped to address these issues at a level beyond platitudes. His knowledge of the field is impressive: the notes refer to what must amount to hundreds of specialized studies, almost all of them by Chinese scholars and many in journals that are difficult to find in the United States. This is by far the best-documented discussion of these problems in any language.” — Paul R. Goldin, author of After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy

Edward L. Shaughnessy is Creel Professor of Early China Studies at The University of Chicago and is the editor or author of several books, including Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics, also published by SUNY Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Editing of Archaeologically Recovered Manuscripts and Its Implications for the Study of Received Texts

2. Rewriting the Zi Yi: How One Chinese Classic Came to Read as It Does

Appendix One: An Annotated Translation of the Guodian and Shanghai Museum Manuscripts Text of the Zi Yi
Appendix Two: The Received “Zi Yi”

3. The Discovery and Editing of the Ji Zhong Texts

4. The Editing and Editions of the Bamboo Annals

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Related Subjects

Asian Religion and Philosophy
Asian Studies
Chinese Studies

44610/44611(NE/LDS/SP)