In this Book
- Exemplary Figures / Fayan法言
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: University of Washington Press
- Series: Classics of Chinese Thought
Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature, sponsored by the Modern Language Association
Exemplary Figures (sometimes translated as Model Sayings) is an unabridged, annotated translation of Fayan, one of three major works by the Chinese court poet-philosopher Yang Xiong (53 BCE-18 CE). Yang sought to "renew the old" by patterning these works on earlier classics, drawing inspiration from the Confucian Analects for Exemplary Figures. In this philosophical masterwork, constructed as a dialogue, Yang poses and then answers questions on philosophical, political, ethical, and literary matters. Michael Nylan's rendering of this text, which is laden with word play and is extraordinarily difficult to translate, is a joy to read-at turns wise, cautionary, and playful.
Exemplary Figures is a core text that will be relied upon by scholars of Chinese history and philosophy and will be of interest to comparativists as well.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-10
- Chronology of Dynasties
- pp. x-11
- Introduction
- pp. xi-xlii
- Chapter 2. Our Masters
- pp. 22-37
- Chapter 3. Cultivating One's Person
- pp. 38-51
- Chapter 4. Asking about the Way
- pp. 52-67
- Chapter 6. Asking about Illumination
- pp. 84-99
- Chapter 7. Things Rarely Seen
- pp. 100-117
- Chapter 8. Every Five Hundred Years
- pp. 118-135
- Chapter 9. Foresight
- pp. 136-149
- Chapter 10. Chong and Li
- pp. 150-181
- Chapter 11. Yan Hui and Min Ziqian
- pp. 182-205
- Chapter 12. The Noble Man
- pp. 206-221
- Glossary of Names, Legendary and Historical
- pp. 243-290
- Abbreviations
- pp. 291-292
- Bibliography
- pp. 293-310