Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Book of Chuang Tzu

As this blog is -- among other things -- one that offers commentary and analysis on Taoist writings by two gents, I have enjoyed sharing with you The Art of War in serialized fashion (which finishes up on Wednesday morning) WITHOUT any of said commentary and analysis. By breaking it up into bite-sized pieces, I hope it has been presented in such a way to make it easier to digest and ponder.

In this same vein, I've decided to give the same treatment to the Book of Chuang Tzu. This will provide those of you who have never read this book before the opportunity to wade through it slowly.

The translation featured will be from James Legge as prepared by Stephen R. McIntyre. While it is one of the older translations, it is readily available on the internet and, once we finish going through all 33 chapters, it might spur you to get a hold of one of the more recent translations.

Posts will appear beginning on Thursday, February 3, three times per day: 7:30 am, 2:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Unlike the Tao Te Ching and The Art of War, some of the posts will be fairly long as I will try to keep the various stories together, though some of the very long ones may still be broken up a bit.

As always, your comments and insights on each snippet are more than welcome AND appreciated.

ADDENDUM (2/7/11)
It has been pointed out by Baroness Radon that the Legge translation is a bit stilted. I tend to agree with her. So, I'm going to change things up a bit and intersperse -- on a chapter per chapter basis -- the translation of Burton Watson. We will see which translation readers prefer.

5 comments:

  1. I've never heard of this book before. I did/am enjoying The Art of War, though, so hopefully the Book of Chuang Tzu will be interesting as well!

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  2. I was wondering when you were gonna get back to Chuang Tzu. If anyone thinks the TTC has many layers of meaning, CT is an even bigger onion.

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  3. But I've been anticipating your comments, if any, on Sun Tzu.

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  4. Awesome! I look forward to reading, and comments upon it as they come.

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  5. Thank you for opening up some hidden jewels of Taoism.

    Joel,

    http://understandingtao.blogspot.com/

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