Message from mferl

[Anonymous]

The Tso Chuan: Selections from China’s Oldest Narrative History. 1989. Translated by Burton Watson. Columbia U. Press.

The Tso chuan is China’s oldest work of narrative history covering the period from 722 to 468 B.C.E. The narratives center on political, diplomatic, and military affairs, but also contain information on economic and cultural developments.

In our seminar we discussed this period and learned that this was a time when more powerful feudal states were annexing their weaker neighbors and the uncertainty and bloodshed led to eventual unification. Also, this was the time of Confucius (511-479B.C.E.), one of the most influential figures in all of Chinese cultural history.

The Tso chuan is important for the illumination of the society in which Confucius and his disciples were active, as well as for the Confucian school of thought that emerged.
The Tso chuan also had a great influence on later Chinese literature and historiography and became one of the Confucian canons of a traditional education not only in China but also in Korea and Japan.

It is not clear of what was the original form of the the Tso chuan. The period of the narratives was a dark one, marked by political turmoil and attacks by one feudal state upon another. Because of the chaos encountered there are figures who rebel against the principles of ritual or propriety and who scorn other traditional virtues enjoined by the ancient texts. There are militarists who celebrate the glories of warfare, cynics who deny the value of morality in government, and fatalists who shift all responsibility for human failure to Heaven or the gods. Supernatural forces play little or no part in these texts.

With a teacher’s guidance, the Tso chuan is suitable reading for high school students.