Analects

by David Hinton (Translator)

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 2500 years, survives here in The Analects — a collection of brief aphoristic sayings that has had a deeper impact on more people's 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, Confucius' philosophy postulated a humanistic social order that has survived as China's 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 scared dimensions.

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 Chuang Tzu, Mencius, The Analects, and Tao te Ching (forthcoming). HIs new versions are not only inviting and immensely readable, but they also apply a much-needed consistency to key terms in these texts, lending structural links and philosophical rigor heretofore unavailable in English. Breathing new life into these originary classics, Hinton's translations will stand as the definitive series for our era.

Genres: China

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2014

About the author

David Hinton has published numerous books of poetry and essays, and many translations of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy—all informed by an abiding interest in deep ecological thinking. This widely-acclaimed work has earned Hinton a Guggenheim Fellowship, numerous fellowships from NEA and NEH, and both of the major awards given for poetry translation in the United States: the Landon Translation Award (Academy of American Poets) and the PEN American Translation Award. Most recently, Hinton received a lifetime achievement award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Marc Rul]

Simple but very very enlightening!

[Doug Newdick · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you review a book like this? A translation of the writings that are at the core of a religion - if that's the right way to describe Confucianism. I will say that the translation is accessible, and does a reasonable job of explaining enough to make the text digestible to someone outside the tradition. And it makes Confucianism sympathetic. I suppose the best that one can say is that this is a good translation to start with if you want to read the core text of Confucius' teachings in English. Though I'd suggest a good commentary as well as this would help you understand what is really going on here.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would have thought that someone 2,500 years ago and half a world away would know so much about organizational bureaucracy and leadership?! The more things change, the more they stay the same. Timeless wisdom.

[David Wu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Master said: "Shall I explain understanding for you, Lu? When you understand something, know that you understand it. When you don't understand something, know that you don't understand it. That's understanding."