Li Qingzhao 李清照- 词的重塑者
李清照——词的重塑者 English Li Qingzhao is regarded by most scholars of Chinese literature as the greatest female poet in the tradition, and by many as one of the greatest poets of any gender in any era. She was active in the…
Sherman
Mencius and Aristotle 孟子与亚里士多德
孟子与亚里士多德：两种美德观 English Mencius and Aristotle were contemporaries — both working in the 4th century BCE, in different corners of the world, without knowledge of each other. Both asked the same fundamental question: what is virtue, where does it come from,…
The Compass 指南针
指南针——开启海洋的发明 English The compass completed the system of the Four Great Inventions. Paper provided the medium for knowledge; printing multiplied it; gunpowder changed the application of force. The compass changed direction — literally. By providing a reliable means of determining…
Gunpowder 火药
火药——改变世界的意外发明 English Gunpowder was not invented by anyone trying to invent it. It was discovered, almost certainly by accident, by Taoist alchemists in Tang dynasty China who were searching for the elixir of immortality — a substance that would extend…
Journey to the West 《西游记》
《西游记》——路、妖与心 English Journey to the West is the strangest of the Four Great Novels and, in certain respects, the most philosophically ambitious. On the surface, it is an adventure story: a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang, travels from Tang dynasty China to…
Water Margin 《水浒传》
《水浒传》——义、忠、江湖 English Water Margin is the most politically uncomfortable of the Four Great Novels — the one that authorities across different dynasties have most frequently tried to suppress, edit, or redirect. Its subject is a group of people whom the…
Black Tortoise 玄武 – 北方守护者
玄武——北方守护者 English The Black Tortoise — Xuanwu, sometimes translated as the Dark Warrior — is the most philosophically layered of the four divine beasts. It governs the north, the season of winter, and the element Water. Unlike the other three,…
Vermilion Bird 朱雀 – 南方守护者
朱雀——南方守护者 English The Vermilion Bird — Zhuque — is the guardian of the south and the season of summer, associated with the element Fire and with a cluster of qualities that includes beauty, cultural refinement, warmth, and the vivid abundance…
White Tiger 白虎 – 西方守护者
白虎——西方守护者 English If the Azure Dragon represents the energy of spring — new growth, expansion, the sun rising in the east — then the White Tiger represents its complement and counterpart: the power of autumn, of contraction, of forces that…
Azure Dragon 青龙 – 东方守护者
青龙——东方守护者 English The Four Divine Beasts — Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise — are among the most ancient and enduring symbols in Chinese culture. They appear in texts and artifacts dating to at least the Han dynasty,…
Six Arts vs Seven Liberal Arts 六艺与七艺
六艺与七艺：两种完整之人的愿景 English What does a fully educated person look like? Every civilization that has thought seriously about education has had to answer this question — and the answer reveals what that civilization most deeply values. The Confucian Six Arts and…
Macbeth by Shakespeare 《麦克白》
《麦克白》——野心之后 English Macbeth is the shortest of the four great tragedies, and the fastest. Where Hamlet meditates and delays, Macbeth acts — almost immediately. The play is not interested in hesitation. It is interested in what comes after the act:…
King Lear by Shakespeare 《李尔王》
《李尔王》——暴风雨中的父亲 English King Lear is the tragedy that most consistently refuses the consolations that tragedy typically offers. In Hamlet, the prince dies with a cause completed and a truth established. In Othello, the terrible clarity of the ending carries a…
What Ancient India Gave the World 古印度的独特馈赠
古印度的独特馈赠 English Ancient India is the last of the four ancient civilizations in this series, and in some respects the most intellectually surprising. Its contributions to the modern world include what may be the single most consequential conceptual invention in…
What Ancient Babylon Gave the World 古巴比伦的独特馈赠
古巴比伦的独特馈赠 English The civilization of ancient Mesopotamia — the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now Iraq — produced some of the most consequential inventions in human history, several of which are so completely absorbed into…