Classical Literature 古典文学
四库全书：收书与禁书的辩证法Siku Quanshu: The Dialectic of Collection and Exclusion 收书约3470种，禁毁约3000种 · 记忆的筛选从未中性 About 3,470 Titles Collected, About 3,000 Banned · The Selection of Memory Is Never Neutral English I have a photocopied edition of the Siku Quanshu General Catalogue at home.…
从对话到答案：四书的四次变形From Dialogue to Answer: Four Transformations of the Four Books 《大学》《中庸》《论语》《孟子》· 一部经典与它所经历的变形 The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects, Mencius · A Classic and Its Transformations English In middle school, I memorized selected passages from the Analects.…
古汉语四声 · 平上去入Four Tones of Classical Chinese 两套“四声”的渊源、差异与入声之谜 Ping, Shang, Qu, Ru — and What They Tell Us About Sound, Poetry, and Time English Many Chinese speakers grow up learning the four tones of modern Mandarin — first tone, second…
四大民间传说 Four Great Chinese Folk Legends 牛郎织女、孟姜女、梁祝、白蛇传 · 深情不破，形灭魂存 Cowherd and Weaver, Meng Jiangnu, Butterfly Lovers, White Snake · Undying Love Beyond Mortal Bounds English Folk legends are the most genuine emotional heritage of a nation. Passed down orally among…
西游四人组The Four Pilgrims 唐僧、孙悟空、猪八戒、沙悟净 · 取经路上的四种人性 Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing · Four Aspects of the Human Psyche on the Road to Self-Completion English Journey to the West is, on the surface, an adventure story: a Buddhist…
《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…
《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…
《红楼梦》——繁华与幻灭 English Dream of the Red Chamber is the novel that readers of Chinese literature tend to save for last — not because it is the most difficult, but because it asks the most of the person reading it. It…
《三国演义》——乱世、忠义与谋略的重量 English Romance of the Three Kingdoms begins with one of the most famous opening lines in Chinese literature: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” In these words, Luo Guanzhong announces…