古代作家, who are your favorites

[Kenny同志]

Hehe, let me list mine first. They are

陶渊明 刘禹锡 周敦颐 李白 苏轼 杜甫 吴承恩

how about yours?

[roddy]

Come on, give us a bit more than that. Why are these your favourites? What would you say are their best works, and the best works for us learners to start with?

[Kenny同志]

Thanks for your encouragement, Roddy. My most favorite is陶渊明, whom I think I have great resemblance with in terms of attitudes towards life. Like him, I love living in the countryside where I can enjoy lovely idyllic scenery and socialize with rustic people. In the countryside you do not have to face millions of skyscrapers everyday; you don’t get annoyed by noises or poisoned by the pollutants vehicles produce and another importance thing is that you can can live in a relaxed a way, and that is why I want to be an in-house translator. We can say that he was very 纯真(I don’t know how to convey the meaning in English). He knew that dirty things were going on out there but he decided resolutely not to get involved. While reading him, it is as if you were talking to each other face to face; you can feel him, and his sense of leisure. How should I put it? Maybe 怡然自得？Anyway, I feel extremely relaxed and sometimes even detached from the mundane world when obsessed in his writings.

As for his works, I recommend 《归去来辞》《五柳先生传》and《桃花源记》

周敦颐’s《爱莲说》and刘禹锡’s 《陋室铭, both are extremely wonderful stuff.

As for the later four, I think they are too famous to be ignored.

Regards, Bamboo Hermit

Edited November 4, 2009 at 02:50 PM by kenny2006woo

[rob07]

Hehe, let me list mine first. They are

陶渊明 刘禹锡 周敦颐 李白 苏轼 杜甫 吴承恩

I think 吴承恩 wrote a story about someone who was "Born from an egg on a mountaintop". This may be the best part of the story:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/17213-first-episode-8-%e9%ad%94%e5%b9%bb%e6%89%8b%e6%9c%ba-magic-mobile-phone

[Kenny同志]

lol, well, if someone wants to know the real 吴承恩, then he or she has to read 西游记

I do not think the tv series are in anyway serious.

Edited November 4, 2009 at 02:47 PM by kenny2006woo

[skylee]

白居易, 李白 and 蘇軾, I think.

[Outofin]

If you like 陶渊明, you can definitely try 庄子. He was a philosopher who pursued ultimate freedom. He was the root of 陶渊明, and arguably the root of Chinese aesthetics.

As for poetry, as many have mentioned, 李杜苏辛 (李白、杜甫、苏轼、辛弃疾) were the best. But even the "second-tier" (sorry for the very insulting term, I admit) poets were awesome, like 白居易、李商隐、屈原, and so on and on...

[Kenny同志]

wow, awesome, you know a lot about Chinese classical literature. :wink:I will try 庄子 once I have got time.

[Daan]

If you like 莊子, consider reading a few chapters from the 列子 as well. The stories, especially in the third chapter (King Mu of Zhou), are humorous, vivid and profound. And there's even a description of what one could call a robot - in ancient China! I read a translation last year and was very impressed. I'll certainly be trying to read it in Classical Chinese in the future, but right now I am working hard to get my Mandarin up to scratch.

[xiaocai]

For me 屈原 is not a second-tier by any means. He is my favourite.

He is one of a kind and his poems are fascinating (even I don't understand much, though). We didn't have much chance to study his works back in high school, so now I am looking for a good translation for all his poems. Maybe someone on this forum can enlighten me a bit?

[gato]

He is one of a kind and his poems are fascinating (even I don't understand much, though). We didn't have much chance to study his works back in high school, so now I am looking for a good translation for all his poems

This one below looks good.

http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=9305129

楚词/国学经典丛书

作者： 汤漳平　注译

本书以《楚辞补注》为底本，细致校勘，详尽注释，精心翻译，又据《文选》、《古文苑》补入了底本未收的一些宋玉的赋作，使其成为现今收入屈、宋作品最全的文本。

[xiaocai]

Thanks a lot, gato. It seems to be a good choice for beginners from what I read about the comments, which is quite suitable for me, hopefully. And there is bonus of 宋玉作品 as well. Obviously I should have spent more time searching online instead of in the local 新华书店...

[skylee]

白居易 is second-tier? aiyayayayaya ~~~~

[Outofin]

See? I'm developing a new skill of insulting people.

Forget about the "second-tier" thing. The only reason I mention these names because I love them. Arts cannot be compared.

If you have reached 屈原, who was way too old, you are one step away from 诗经, the Book of Odes, the earliest existing collection of nameless authors. They're surprisingly elegant and mature. Definitely do not miss them.

[Daan]

The 詩經 are wonderful, written in an era so unimaginably different from present-day life, yet also very recognisable. The only thing is the language is very different from Classical Chinese 文言 as codified in the Han dynasty, so my advice would be to get a decent 讀本 if you're serious about understanding the language, rhythm and deeper meaning behind the sometimes seemingly impenetrable poems.

[skylee]

I can enjoy 詩經, but I find 屈原's works quite difficult (I've tried, really).

[Outofin]

Good to know so many like poetry.

Yes, both 诗经 and 屈原 have many difficult characters that we don’t ever use or see today. They’re simply ancient. 屈原’s style in particular tend to be resplendent, and thus even more difficult language-wise. You can see his life and heart burst into pieces of poems.

诗经’s style is actually plain. They’re mostly “songs” people sung. You can see it builds up some rhythms and follows the pattern and repeats itself. Very much like music. It’s awestruck that people 3000 years ago had been using such a sophisticated language.

Poetry before Qin can be said 古雅 “ancient and elegant”. Poetry during Han was 古硬. Language-wise, they’re ancient and complicated enough. Their style was quite tough. If poem is a thing you can touch, the feeling is very stiff.

We don't need to study history. Just reading poems, we can see how Chinese civilization rose and declined. We have Tang, the best time of poetry, and arguably the best time of our race. After that, it’s the slow and long declining. Of course, there were great poets after Tang. As a matter of fact, there were many. But the shadow was gradually gathering. The spirit was degenerating. If you randomly pick up a poem from Tang, chances are you’ll see mountains, rivers, something grand, some place thousands of miles afar. Then you randomly pick up a poem from Song, you’ll see a garden, a tree, a flower. Of course you can counter this argument by numerous examples, but I think the overall tone between Tang and Song was like that.

It’s just sad, until you reach poems in the 20th century. The feeling is, “here we go again.”

[Daan]

诗经’s style is actually plain. They’re mostly “songs” people sung. You can see it builds up some rhythms and follows the pattern and repeats itself. Very much like music. It’s awestruck that people 3000 years ago had been using such a sophisticated language.

These days, many linguists believe the language spoken by the authors/compilers of the 詩經 was very different from later Sinitic languages, including Han dynasty vernacular, which is roughly speaking the language whose written register was later codified as 文言. To what extent, however, is still being debated. But a consensus seems to be emerging that the 詩經 language had morphological affixes that are not reflected in the transmitted written materials, although this too is still subject of heated discussion. See also this post if you are interested, or feel free to ask me, though I am by no means an expert

[skylee]

Outofin, I agree with you. But sometimes, like, when I pick up 長恨歌, I find a big piece of fine soap opera. (others might call it epic, though).

I really like long ballads.

[xiaocai]

They are equally hard to me. And not just the difficult words and characters, I also find that the way people thought thousands years ago is so different, which really puzzles me sometimes. Yet it is exactly the same thing that fascinates me and draws me to the old poems. I am often amazed by the way they looked at certain things and this kind of motivates me to crack on those hard pieces, in a very very slow pace though.