文言文 Reading list

[OneEye]

In learning Latin, there's a somewhat standard order of progression at most schools (at least in the English speaking world). You learn the grammar from Wheelock's or Moreland and Fleischer, then you read Caesar, then Cicero, then Vergil, etc. Of course this can vary, but it's common enough to make me wonder about something similar for Chinese.

Is there some sort of widely-accepted order of reading things in Classical/Literary Chinese? Is (or was) there a somewhat standard progression in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong that schoolchildren follow?

In Wilkinson's Chinese History: A Manual, he lays out an example of a child's reading progression:

三字經

百家姓

千字文

孝經

大學

中庸

論語

孟子

That seems as good a place to start as any, but what about after that? Assuming the goal is to get a broad overview of the history of Chinese literature, rather than detailed knowledge of one period (which can come later). Which works would you include, and in which order (in order of difficulty, ordered by time period, whatever)?

I know this could potentially turn into an enormous list ("And then, once you've finished 四庫全書..."), so maybe a good idea would be to keep it to something that, starting from a basic level and having 60-90 minutes per day to devote to this, a person could accomplish in 3-4 years and get a good sampling of what's out there.

Full disclosure: My reasons for starting this thread are not entirely unselfish.

[Hofmann]

三字經, 百家姓, and 千字文 are pretty useless. 三字經 and 千字文 are not good because they're constrained. 百家姓 is a bunch of names. A bunch of names. Why?

I think traditionally one would start with 四書, then read 五經. However, the modern scholar would do better getting a textbook such as Fuller or Pulleyblank. Then go on to read whatever.

[skylee]

_{When I was a student (that was a long time ago), the Chinese language curriculum in Hong Kong seemed to focus on letting students have exposure to a selection of must-know classics involving various forms (prose, verse) and works of famous writers, rather than making them read through just a few famous books. The only exception seemed to be poems (especially Tang and Song poems), which seemed to take a much bigger share (or perhaps it was the focus of my teachers/school).}

三字經, 百家姓, and 千字文 are too basic to make the curriculum. Back then 三字經 and 千字文 were taught at home before kids even started going to school. I have never learnt 百家姓 and don't see the need to. As far as I can remember, I was taught selections of these at middle school -

古詩 (like 古詩十九首/木蘭辭) 詩經 唐宋詩詞

史記

大學

中庸

論語

孟子

四大名著 (note - these are not really 文言)

唐宋散文

明清散文

Some reference -> http://edu-hk.com/se...y_exercise.aspx

[Daan]

I read these in my year in Taiwan, devoting at most 2 hours a day to reading Classical Chinese:

三字經

孝經

大學

中庸

論語

I also read most of the selections of Classical Chinese in SMC's Literary Chinese for Advanced Beginners, and worked my way through most of volume 1 of 王力's 古代漢語 series. If you search in this forum, you'll even find a topic with discussions about the texts in that volume: we ran an online Classical Chinese reading group for a while.

I didn't really feel like reading the entire 孟子 after having finished the 論語, so I switched to reading more Modern Chinese for a while. I haven't really had a lot of time to read Classical Chinese lately, but I hope to pick up the habit in the Christmas break again, and I think I'll be reading selections from the 搜神記 and the 世說新語, although I may yet settle for reading the 古文觀止 - that's as close to an anthology of Classical Chinese writing as you'll get, I think.

[OneEye]

Yeah, I agree 百家姓 wouldn't be worth worrying about. 三字經 and 千字文 I'm not so sure. If only for the fact that they're so well known and have been so well known in the past. My teacher last term got really excited when I quoted 人之初性本善，性相近習相遠. I don't think it would be a waste of time to at least be familiar with something so widely read throughout the last several centuries. I also think that as a simple, child-level distillation of Confucian thought, 三字經 is an interesting read. I'm reading it as a side project while I work my way through Fuller, along with the occasional bit of 論語. I do want to finish the 四書 and 五經 in the next 2-3 years.

Skylee, thanks for the info! That looks like a good list to read, though if I'm going to include 四大名著 it might take me a little longer. Maybe I can find which selections are thought to be most important. I'm sure I can find a high school Chinese reader or something here in Taiwan.

Daan, your PM a while back talking about what you read while you were here is partially what got me thinking about this. Next school year I'll be studying 文言文 privately with a teacher either from MTC or ICLP on the side of my regular classes, but I want to at least finish 四書 and maybe some poetry before then. I hope at some point during my second year here to work on 古文觀止, though that will depend on how well I progress up until then.

[carlo]

The first wenyan book that I actually managed to finish and enjoy as an adult learner was a bilingual (classical/modern Ch) version of 聊斋志异. I think finding something you find interesting to read is key.

[skylee]

I think 世說新語 and 古文觀止 are good ideas. I thought about suggesting 聊齋 this morning but dropped the idea as I don't know much about it and didn't really enjoy that little bit that I got to read.

You could also consider some 元曲 like 桃花扇 if you like, even only for sampling the most representative art form of each dynasty.

[xiaocai]

I think 四书五经 are quite hard. 四书 may be slightly easier but I still don't think they are very suitable for beginners. Reading 唐宋散文 would be a good start. Poems can be considered as well. I was reading 梦溪笔谈 some time ago. While I can not comment on its literary value, I found the content of some chapters fascinating...

[OneEye]

Why start with later-period books rather than Classical-era stuff? Most beginners' textbooks start with passages from 四書 and other books from the Classical era, since this is what the literary language in later times is based upon, and then work up to the later stuff. Quite the opposite of reading 唐宋散文 first.

Why do you think 四書 is hard? 五經 I can understand but I've looked at and read several selections from 四書 and I haven't thought they were all that difficult.

[xiaocai]

Because they are easier I think? I remember in high school we did learn some excerpts from 四书, but they are all short and with lots of notes so that we can follow. Where as 唐宋散文 normally come in longer full articles with less explanation and I also found the ideas are much easier to grasp. Well ,maybe the standards in Taiwan are higher, I don't know.

But I am just a casual reader, so what I said is more based on my own experience. For 唐宋散文, normally I can read without too many pauses and if I do come across parts which I don't understand, I can always finish the whole chapter and then read the footnotes. I feel 唐诗宋词 are about the same difficulty. For 传奇小说 such as 桃花扇 and 长生殿, they are even easier (strictly speaking they are not written in fully classical Chinese) and because the writing is more storytelling oriented, they are at least fun to read. I also attempted 笔记 such as 梦溪笔谈 and 容斋随笔. They are not easy, but the fun is there, and you get to know about the life and things in ancient China, which I think is quite interesting. 四书 seems to be one of those "must" when it comes to classical Chinese but when I tried reading the whole book, I found myself constantly flipping back and forth between the main text and the translation and having to pause way to often to really enjoy the reading. The writing style aside, I also had to stop and think hard about the concept it presents from time to time, which was not easy at all either. Where as 五经, even reading short extract will be quite difficult to me. 屈原? Just read translations...

[skylee]

Who is going to do 屈原? (!!!)

[xiaocai]

Well I tried at least, but gave up in 5 minutes, and I don't think I will go back to it any time soon, if not ever...

[Mark Yong]

OneEye wrote:

Why start with later-period books rather than Classical-era stuff?

Actually, this was the approach I used to ease myself into the general grammar and lexicon of Classical/Literary Chinese, i.e. by reading relatively-later texts. Thanks to recommendations I received from a previous post, I found 梁啟超 and 蘇曼殊 quite helpful. Compared to earlier works, you don't get so lost in the allusions, and having to constantly rely on the commentaries to figure out the context (and this applies to the samplings from 古文觀止, too).

[OneEye]

OK, thanks for the suggestions, everyone. So I'll be picking up:

四書

五經

搜神記

世說新語

唐詩

宋詞

古文觀止

This should keep me occupied for a while, I think. I also have 三國演義 and 聊齋志異 back home in the US, so I'll hold off on those for a while, unless I get the chance to take the 三國 class at my school.

[shinewind]

Is it too late to suggest 元曲? Huh! I think some of them are just as great as唐詩宋詞.

[OneEye]

Definitely not too late! Skylee suggested 桃花扇 above, do you have any other recommendations?

[Brad Patterson 包德]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned 西游记. This was among the first more challenging classics that I delved into. Important addition as far as chinese cultural knowledge too.

[renzhe]

西游记 is written in modern vernacular, not Classical Chinese (though there are clear classical-language influences).

[skylee]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned 西游记.

I have. I said in #3, " 四大名著 (note - these are not really 文言)".

[knickherboots]

One question to ask is: What are your criteria? Another is: What's your objective? Your discussion of Latin refers to following a received tradition. But you may want to look more critically at what you'd like to accomplish and base your "plan" on that. My focus in the past was on Song-Ming prose. As a result, I can do fairly well with these and later prose works, but am rather hopeless with poetry, not to mention 赋. And even my 四书 reading skills are weak. If you'd just like to develop broad skills, then I guess it would be wise to read broadly across genres and periods. But, seconding Mark Young's point, it might be easier for some people to work "backwards," from later texts to earlier texts. Or maybe work with later and earlier texts in parallel.