early chinese literature and thought (volume a). china oldest surviving civilization regional...
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Early Chinese Literatureand Thought (Volume A)
China
• oldest surviving civilization
• regional identity versus cultural-political unity
• military elites• sage rulers (Fu Xi)• Yellow River
Huangdi and Fu Xi
China: Bronze Age
• Shang Dynasty• bone divination• ancestor worship• 3,200-year history• logographic• “brush talk”
Zhou Conquest and Decline
• agrarian• “Heaven” • mandate• King Wen, King Wu• separation into
eastern and western
Eastern Zhou
• Spring, Autumn Annals Period
• Warring States Period• new diplomacy• military technology
advance• end of old aristocracy• Confucius
• Confucians
• Mohists
• Daoists
• Logicians
• Legalists
• Yin-Yang Masters
Master’s Literature
Confucius
• moral education• analects• Daoism• Classic of Poetry• “think no evil”• “poor yet cheerful,
rich yet considerate”
Zhuangzi
• Daoism• anecdote• dangers of
persuasion• necessity of language
Qu Yuan, Imperial China
• “Encountering Sorrow”
• Qin• poor character, strong
military• 221 B.C.E.
• central bureaucracy
• Legalist
• veneration of the written word
• oral persuasion
• applicable knowledge
• “The difficult thing about persuasion is to know the mind of the person one is trying to persuade and to be able to fit one’s words to it” (p. 1428).
Han Feizi
Qin Burning of Books
• 213 B.C.E.
• intellectual disagreement
• practical manuals
Han Dynasty
• Emperor Wu• campaigning• Five Classics: Classic
of Changes, Classic of Documents, Classic of Poetry, Spring and Autumn Annals, Record of Rites
• Sima Qian, history
The Emergence of Unified China
The Han Empire
What was the ancient Chinese Classic of Changes (the I Ching)?
a. a farming textb. a divination textc. a historyd. an early poetry anthology
Test Your Knowledge
The earliest Chinese writing used characters that looked like: ___________ .
a. the Phoenician alphabetb. hieroglyphsc. bird and animal tracksd. elements like water, fire. and air
Test Your Knowledge
The “Mandate from Heaven” was a way justifying which of the following?
a. the correctness of one philosophy over anotherb. the importance of military rulec. changes in crop yield from year to yeard. shifts in power from one dynasty to another
Test Your Knowledge
What was “Masters Literature”?
a. collections of great dramatic worksb. collections of philosophical textsc. historical court recordsd. military strategy guides
Test Your Knowledge
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