An Introduction to Literary Chinese: Revised Edition

by Michael A. Fuller

Book Overview

This textbook for beginning students contains 35 lessons of increasing difficulty designed to introduce students to the basic patterns of Classical Chinese and to provide practice in reading a variety of texts. The lessons are structured to encourage students to do more work with dictionaries and other references as they progress through the book.

The Introduction provides an overview of the grammar of Literary Chinese. Part I presents eight...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674017269
• ISBN13: 9780674017269
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Dense and inaccessible

This text makes excellent use of carefully selected texts that take you from the most basic level to being able to approach the more advanced texts independently. It does require at least a foundation in Chinese (or Japanese or Korean), mainly because the reader needs at least to be able to recognise and differentiate the difference Chinese characters. Classical Chinese being a dead language, knowledge of the modern spoken language is not terribly helpful and may even be a hindrance.

A great way to get started!

This introduction to classical Chinese contains readings on all levels of difficulty. It also has many readings taken from the classics. There's selections from The Analects, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Hanfeizi, and much more. It is motivating to be able to read the texts that probably got you interested in classical Chinese in the first place! While this is a great introduction it's most likely the case that you'll need some background in the Modern Chinese, because these sections progress pretty fast. Still, out of all of the books I've looked at this seems the most helpful in getting one started with the Classical Chinese.

An Interesting Resource with some good Ideas

I will admit, I am not a Chinese Clacissit, so I am not interested in devoting myself exclusively to Litterary Chinese. I do enjoy it, though, and this book suits my interests well.The most outstanding feature of this book is the Introduction, which provides an amazing perspective on the role of writting, language and litterature in East Asia. Not everyone may agree with it, but it's certainly fresh, well thought out, and well documented.The instructional parts are interesting, they don't seem too hard to me, but then again, I like reading James Joyce. What I will say is that they don't pander to a lot of New Age, Neo-Orientalist Western stereotypes they way some other books do. If they seem harder to understand than other books, that's because Litterary Chinese IS hard to understand. Simplification of these concepts normaly comes by promoting stereotypes of ancient languages over techinical accuracy.I see similar problems with translating Classical Greek: people want to make things sound old, or mysterious, or "Chinese." This generaly steers you clear of fortune cookie translations that all come out sounding like the same haiku.Finaly, what realy drew me to the book was it's selections. It has some interesting pieces, and all of which are hard to find on their own, and are essential parts of Chinese culture. My favorate find: The Preface to the Orchid Pavillion. It's a famous piece of Calligraphy, and a good example of litterary Chinese.

An excellent text but not one for the absolute beginner.

Although this book is billed as a "textbook for beginning students," it would be more correct to describe it as a university textbook for beginning students of Literary (Classical) Chinese who already have at least a basic grasp of modern Chinese. Those who already know modern Chinese will find the book to be an excellent introduction to Classical Chinese.After an informative Introduction which covers the 'Problems of Reading and Understanding Chinese' and 'A Sketch of Literary Chinese,' the main body of the book follows in four parts: Part 1 - Texts to Introduce Basic Grammar; Part 2 - Intermediate Texts; Part 3 - Advanced Texts; Part 4 - Selected Tang and Song Dynasty Writings. The book is rounded out with six useful appendices - including a comprehensive 40-page 'Glossary of Function Words' - and a detailed 35-page Index.Whereas each of the earlier lessons gives the Grammar needed for the lesson, the Texts, Vocabulary, Notes on the Texts, Questions, Exercises, and sometimes Bibliographic Exercises, these gradually fall away as the student's knowledge progresses, until in Part 4 only the bare texts of Mencius, Chuang Tzu, etc., are given. No answers are provided for the numerous exercises, and many of them require that the student either have or have access to a comprehensive Chinese-Chinese dictionary. Other exercises require that the student have access to a university library with an extensive Chinese collection. It might also be a good idea to provide yourself with a copy of Edwin G. Pulleyblank's 'Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar,' a book on which Fuller draws heavily.All in all this is an excellent textbook for students who already know modern Chinese, are studying with a competent teacher, and have access to a good library. Others who may be innocent of Chinese, but who have become intrigued by what is one of the most interesting and vigorous languages in the world, should look for a copy of Raymond Dawson's 'Introduction to Classical Chinese' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) or the same writer's 'New Introduction to Classical Chinese' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984). Unlike Fuller's textbook, neither of Dawson's require any previous background in Chinese at all - he even teaches you how to use a Chinese dictionary and how to write Chinese characters - and both can be used for self study. Parts 3 and 4 of the Fuller would be of interest, for their texts, to those who have already worked their way through Dawson.