The Analects (Lunyu) is one of the most influential texts in human history. As a putative record of Confucius' (551–479 B.C.E.) teachings and a foundational text in scriptural Confucianism, this classic was instrumental in shaping intellectual traditions in China and East Asia until the early twentieth century.
But no premodern reader read only the text of the Analects itself. Rather, the Analects was embedded in a web of interpretation that mediated its meaning. Modern interpreters of the Analects only rarely acknowledge this legacy of two thousand years of commentaries. How well do we understand prominent or key commentaries from this tradition? How often do we read such commentaries as we might read the text on which they comment? Many commentaries do more than simply comment on a text. Not only do they shape the reading of the text, but passages of text serve as pretexts for the commentator to develop and expound his own body of thought.
This book attempts to redress our neglect of commentaries by analyzing four key works dating from the late second century to the mid-nineteenth century (a period substantially contemporaneous with the rise and decline of scriptural Confucianism): the commentaries of He Yan (ca. 190–249); Huang Kan (488–545); Zhu Xi (1130–1200); and Liu Baonan (1791–1855) and Liu Gongmian (1821–1880).
Makeham's monumental work, Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects is the most impressive of the three [works under review], insightfully digging through millennia of ancient commentaries.
— Kelly James Clark
| Conventions | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| Pt. 1 | Commentary as Authority; He Yan et al., Lunyu jijie (Collected Explanations of the Analects) | |
| 1 | He Yan, Authorship, and Xuanxue Thought | 23 |
| 2 | Innovation As/Through Form | 48 |
| Pt. 2 | Commentary as Philosophy; Huang Kan's Lunyu yishu (Elucidation of the Meaning of the Analects) | |
| 3 | Huang Kan and the Shu Genre | 79 |
| 4 | The Philosophical Character of Elucidation of the Meaning | 96 |
| 5 | Buddhist and Institutional Influences on Huang's Thought | 148 |
| Pt. 3 | Beyond Method; Zhu Xi's Lunyu jizhu (Collected Annotations on the Analects) | |
| 6 | Zhu Xi, Commentary, and the Analects | 171 |
| 7 | Zhu Xi on Learning | 196 |
| 8 | The Rhetoric and Reality of Learning to Be a Sage | 221 |
| Pt. 4 | Method and Truth; Liu Baonan and Liu Gongmian's Lunyu zhengyi (Correct Meaning of the Analects) | |
| 9 | Liu Baonan and Liu Gongmian | 253 |
| 10 | Liu Baonan and Han Learning | 268 |
| 11 | Confucius as Cultural Custodian | 301 |
| Epilogue | 349 | |
| App. A | Developments in the Early Commentarial Tradition of the Analects | 363 |
| App. B | The Eight Commentators Selected by the Collected Explanations Editors | 378 |
| App. C | Early History of Collected Explanations and Main Editions | 386 |
| App. D | Format and Early History of Elucidation of the Meaning | 391 |
| App. E | Zhu Xi's Analects Commentaries | 397 |
| App. F | Liu Baonan's Writings | 407 |
| Works Cited | 413 | |
| Index to Analects Passages | 445 | |
| General Index | 449 |
Overview
The Analects (Lunyu) is one of the most influential texts in human history. As a putative record of Confucius' (551–479 B.C.E.) teachings and a foundational text in scriptural Confucianism, this classic was instrumental in shaping intellectual traditions in China and East Asia until the early twentieth century.
But no premodern reader read only the text of the Analects itself. Rather, the Analects was embedded in a web of interpretation that mediated its meaning. Modern ...