Essays

AnonymousJinzhang Book Company (Jinzhang Shuju) · ChinaJun 2024

2.8

Word count: 4K words
Chapters: 2

Summary

Now, writings originate from the Five Classics: edicts, commands, documents, and calls to arms are born from the Book of Documents; prefaces, accounts, discussions, and deliberations are born from the Book of Changes; songs, chants, rhapsodies, and eulogies are born from the Book of Songs; sacrificial prayers and mourning elegies are born from the Book of Rites; memorials, petitions, admonitions, and inscriptions are born from the Spring and Autumn Annals. Court charters, military oaths and proclamations, spreading and displaying benevolence and righteousness, making manifest merit and virtue, governing the people and founding a state—their uses are many. As for cultivating the spirit and, in leisurely fashion, offering indirect remonstrance, entering into their flavor is also a pleasure. If one has energy to spare after performing one's duties, then one may study them.

Editor's review

"Writings" uses a genealogical approach to assign edicts, commands, documents, and calls to arms; prefaces, accounts, discussions, and deliberations; songs, chants, rhapsodies, and eulogies; sacrificial prayers and mourning elegies; and memorials, petitions, admonitions, and inscriptions respectively to the Five Classics—the Book of Documents, Book of Changes, Book of Songs, Book of Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals—outlining the bloodline connection between ancient literary genres and the classics. The text discusses both the practical functions of court charters and military oaths and proclamations and the aesthetic value of cultivating the spirit and offering leisurely indirect remonstrance, balancing writings' service to affairs with their relation to temperament. The language is ancient and condensed: in barely over a hundred characters it covers three layers—classification of genres, function of writings, and attitude toward writing—making it suitable as introductory material for understanding traditional views of writing. Readers may thereby appreciate how the ancients sought classical grounding for writing and may gain some insight into the leisurely attitude of "if one has energy to spare after performing one's duties, then one may study them."

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature and history enthusiasts interested in ancient genre classification and the origins of writings
Students who wish to understand traditional views of writing from the perspective of the classics
Teachers engaged in classical-culture启蒙 or language teaching who need short classical Chinese materials
Readers who enjoy close reading of short texts and pondering ancient generic consciousness

Not a good fit for

Practical writers expecting specific writing techniques and operational steps
Beginners with a weak foundation in classical Chinese who need character-by-character annotation
Specialist researchers seeking a systematic history of a particular genre's development

Reading tips

Read through once, mark the correspondences between the five groups of genres and the Five Classics, then review sentence by sentence the reasons for their classification.
Read alongside relevant chapters of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons to compare their accounts of generic origins.
Note expressions such as "cultivating the spirit" and "leisurely indirect remonstrance," and consider the ancients' twofold understanding of the function of writings.
Copy out the whole text once, experiencing in the copying its neat sentence patterns and condensed diction.

About the publisher

Jinzhang Book Company (Jinzhang Shuju) China · Founded in 1901

Jinzhang Book Company (Jinzhang Shuju) was a private publishing and distribution house in Shanghai during the late Qing and early Republican periods, issuing traditional works by lithographic printing. Judging from the 1,194 titles in the collection, its publishing focused on classical poetry, Eastern philosophy, historical reading, traditional Chinese medical texts, and canonical works, along with books on literary appreciation. Representative titles include the poetry and prose collections of Du Fu and Ouyang Xiu; historical works such as the Book of Han and Zizhi Tongjian; classical texts such as the Book of Documents and Mencius; and specialized and literary classics such as Treatise on Cold Damage and Li Sao. Its author resources cover major figures across the ages, including Du Fu, Ban Gu, Sima Guang, Zhang Zhongjing, Qu Yuan, Ouyang Xiu, and Tang Shenwei, reflecting the house's characteristic reliance on traditional scholarship and medical literature while serving general readers. Public information on its early history and operational details is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.

版权信息
文章第九

FAQ

Into which categories does this text divide writings, and from which classic does each derive?

The text lists edicts, commands, documents, and calls to arms as deriving from the Book of Documents; prefaces, accounts, discussions, and deliberations from the Book of Changes; songs, chants, rhapsodies, and eulogies from the Book of Songs; sacrificial prayers and mourning elegies from the Book of Rites; and memorials, petitions, admonitions, and inscriptions from the Spring and Autumn Annals. This correspondence is not strict historical verification but rather uses the authority of the classics to establish origins for each genre, embodying the ancient idea of "revering the classics" in writing.

How should "if one has energy to spare after performing one's duties, then one may study them" be understood?

This sentence places writing after moral cultivation, emphasizing that one should first establish oneself and then take up writing. It neither disparages writing nor demands that everyone become a master writer; rather, it reminds writers not to pursue the branch while neglecting the root. Together with the preceding exposition of the functions of writings, it shows that the ancients both valued the practical utility of writings and maintained a leisurely attitude toward writing.

Is this short text suitable for memorization?

Yes. The whole text is short, neatly patterned, and clearly structured, so memorization is not difficult. Once memorized, the framework of genre classification can be recalled at any time, helping one remember the relationship between ancient genres and the classics. It is best to memorize on the basis of understanding each sentence's meaning, rather than merely remembering the sounds without understanding.

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About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.