Between History and Philosophy

Description

Between History and Philosophy is the first book-length study in English to focus on the rhetorical functions and forms of anecdotal narratives in early China. Edited by Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen, this volume advances the thesis that anecdotes—brief, freestanding accounts of single events involving historical figures, and occasionally also unnamed persons, animals, objects, or abstractions—served as an essential tool of persuasion and meaning-making within larger texts. Contributors to the volume analyze the use of anecdotes from the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, including their relations to other types of narrative, their circulation and reception, and their central position as a mode of argumentation in a variety of historical and philosophical literary genres.
Acknowledgments

Anecdotes in Early China
Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen

Part I. Anecdotes, Argumentation, and Debate

1. Non-deductive Argumentation in Early Chinese Philosophy
Paul R. Goldin

2. The Frontier between Chen and Cai: Anecdote, Narrative, and Philosophical Argumentation in Early China
Andrew Seth Meyer

3. Mozi as a Daoist Sage? An Intertextual Analysis of the “Gongshu” Anecdote in the Mozi
Ting-mien Lee

4. Anecdotal Barbarians in Early China
Wai-yee Li

Part II. Anecdotes and Textual Formation

5. Anecdote Collections as Argumentative Texts: The Composition of the Shuoyuan
Christian Schwermann

6. From Villains Outwitted to Pedants Out-Wrangled: The Function of Anecdotes in the Shifting Rhetoric of the Han Feizi
Heng Du

7. The Limits of Praise and Blame: The Rhetorical Uses of Anecdotes in the Gongyangzhuan
Sarah A. Queen

Part III. Anecdotes and History

8. History without Anecdotes: Between the Zuozhuan and the Xinian Manuscript
Yuri Pines

9. Cultural Memory and Excavated Anecdotes in “Documentary” Narrative: Mediating Generic Tensions in the Baoxun Manuscript
Rens Krijgsman

10. Old Stories No Longer Told: The End of the Anecdotes Tradition of Early China
Paul van Els

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• History of Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 21 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438466132
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

Between History and Philosophy
SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor
Between History and Philosophy
Anecdotes in Early China
Edited by
Paul van Els
and
Sarah A. Queen
Cover art by Monica Klasing Chen © 2017
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Els, Paul van, editor. | Queen, Sarah A. (Sarah Ann), editor.
Title: Between history and philosophy : anecdotes in early China / edited by Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2017. | Series: SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040637 (print) | LCCN 2017000322 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438466118 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438466132 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Anecdotes—China. | Anecdotes—China—History and criticism. | Chinese literature—Philosophy. | China—Intellectual life—To 221 B.C. | China—Intellectual life—221 B.C.–960 A.D.
Classification: LCC PN6267.C5 B48 2017 (print) | LCC PN6267.C5 (ebook) | DDC895.18/02—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040637
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
He misses what an anecdote may say
Who thinks it voices merely jests and play.
—Elizabeth Hazelton Haight
Contents
Acknowledgments
Anecdotes in Early China
Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen
P ART I A NECDOTES , A RGUMENTATION , AND D EBATE
1. Non-deductive Argumentation in Early Chinese Philosophy
Paul R. Goldin
2. The Frontier between Chen and Cai: Anecdote, Narrative, and Philosophical Argumentation in Early China
Andrew Seth Meyer
3. Mozi as a Daoist Sage? An Intertextual Analysis of the “Gongshu” Anecdote in the Mozi
Ting-mien Lee
4. Anecdotal Barbarians in Early China
Wai-yee Li
P ART II A NECDOTES AND T EXTUAL F ORMATION
5. Anecdote Collections as Argumentative Texts: The Composition of the Shuoyuan
Christian Schwermann
6. From Villains Outwitted to Pedants Out-Wrangled: The Function of Anecdotes in the Shifting Rhetoric of the Han Feizi
Heng Du
7. The Limits of Praise and Blame: The Rhetorical Uses of Anecdotes in the Gongyangzhuan
Sarah A. Queen
P ART III A NECDOTES AND H ISTORY
8. History without Anecdotes: Between the Zuozhuan and the Xinian Manuscript
Yuri Pines
9. Cultural Memory and Excavated Anecdotes in “Documentary” Narrative: Mediating Generic Tensions in the Baoxun Manuscript
Rens Krijgsman
10. Old Stories No Longer Told: The End of the Anecdotes Tradition of Early China
Paul van Els
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
This book is the outcome of a delightful workshop that took place on May 31 and June 1, 2013, in the Blue Room of City Hotel Nieuw Minerva, which is located in an authentic sixteenth-century warehouse along one of the many canals in Leiden, The Netherlands. During two intensive days, more than a dozen scholars from a variety of nations and affiliations presented and discussed the various functions of anecdotes in early Chinese texts: Carine Defoort, Heng Du, Paul R. Goldin, Lisa Indraccolo, Rens Krijgsman, Ting-mien Lee, Wai-yee Li, Andrew Seth Meyer, Jens Østergård Petersen, Yuri Pines, Sarah A. Queen, Elisa Sabattini, Christian Schwermann, Newell Ann Van Auken, and Paul van Els. The audience included guests from places near and far, such as Ivana Buljan, Xi Hu, Simon Hürlimann, and Burchard Mansvelt Beck, as well as many Leiden University staff and students. We thank all those who were present for their comments and questions, which enriched the workshop and helped shape the present volume in significant ways.
We are also profoundly grateful to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for sponsoring the workshop and some of the research that has led to this book. We are especially indebted to Nancy Lewandowski, History Department Assistant at Connecticut College, who generously contributed her time and expertise to prepare the manuscript for circulation and publication.
Finally, we are thankful to Roger T. Ames, Jenn Bennett, Michael Campochiaro, Nancy Ellegate, and other staff at SUNY Press, for their trust in our project and their help in materializing the present book, and to the anonymous reviewers who painstakingly scrutinized each chapter, as well as the book as a whole.
Anecdotes in Early China
P AUL VAN E LS AND S ARAH A. Q UEEN 1
When the Duke of Xue served as chancellor of the state of Qi, the queen consort of King Wei of Qi died. There were ten young women whom the king esteemed. The Duke of Xue wished to discover whom the king desired to install, so he could implore the king to appoint that particular woman as his new queen consort. If the king heeded his advice, he would win the favor of the king and he would earn the respect of the newly appointed queen consort; but if the king did not heed his advice, he would not be graced with the king’s favor and he would be disdained by the newly appointed queen consort. [Therefore] he wished to discover in advance which woman the king desired to appoint in order to encourage the king to appoint that very woman. So subsequently he crafted ten pairs of jade earrings, one of which was more beautiful than the others. He presented them to the king, who then distributed them among the ten young women as gifts. When they all sat together the next day, the duke spied out the whereabouts of the most beautiful pair of earrings and urged the king [that the woman who now wore them] be made the new queen consort. 2
薛公相齊 , 齊威王夫人死 . 有十孺子 , 皆貴於王 , 薛公欲知王所欲立 , 而請置一人以為夫人 . 王聽之 , 則是說行於王而重於置夫人也 . 王不聽 , 是說不行而輕於置夫人也 . 欲先知王之所欲置以勸王置之 , 於是為十玉珥而美其一而獻之 , 王以賦十孺子 . 明日坐 , 視美珥之所在而勸王以為夫人 . 3
This colorful narrative is found in the Han Feizi 韓非子 (Master Han Fei), a voluminous text that lays out the politico-philosophical views of Han Fei 韓非 (ca. 280–233 BCE). An influential thinker of noble descent, he once served as advisor to the monarch who would be known to the world as the First Emperor of China. The brief narrative recounts an event that supposedly took place in the century before Han Fei’s lifetime, when China was divided into various states that battled each other for hegemony. It features two historical figures: Tian Yinqi 田因齊 , better known as King Wei of Qi 齊威王 (r. 356–320 BCE), who was one of the most powerful rulers of his day; and his youngest son, Tian Ying 田嬰 , who was enfeoffed with Xue 薛 and is also known as Lord Jingguo 靖郭君 . 4 The event involving these two men unfolds in the royal palace of the large state of Qi in the period following the passing of the queen consort. It is described succinctly and rather matter-of-factly, even when it details the duke’s considerations (“If the king heeded his advice …”), and could be read as a factual depiction of a moment in Chinese history. However, brief as it may be, the story also teaches a valuable lesson, namely that clever strategies enable us to discover the hidden inclinations of others, even of those in power, and to use this knowledge to our advantage—a lesson Han Fei was keen to share with his readers. Most readers in his day, but even today, over two thousand years after the story was first committed to writing, would probably admire the duke’s clever scheme and agree that as a piece of literature, the story is quite entertaining.
The earrings story bears all the hallmarks of what is generally dubbed an “anecdote,” as we shall demonstrate below. Anecdotes similar to the one presented here are part and parcel of the literary tradition of early China, which typically refers to the period from the Zhou Dynasty 周 (ca. 1045–256 BCE), through the Qin Dynasty 秦 (221–206 BCE), to the former half of the Han Dynasty 漢 (202 BCE–220 CE). This formative period in Chinese history is marked by social, political, and economical turmoil as the monarchs of the Zhou house lost their polit