250 word summary

Early Chinese Literature and Thought

· China's literary tradition has lasted over 3,000 years. The idea of China as a country is heavily tied-into "the power of the written word," especially the  Five Classics (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  (Wujing) and Confucian Analects (Norton 748)

· Confucius (551-479  BCE) looks back to the early Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE) for examples of model rulers

· Early Zhou Dynasty rulers invented "the Mandate of Heaven" (Tianming) --> an important concept for Confucius

· The Mandate of Heaven (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  claims that Heaven (a god / divine force) "transferred the mandate to rule to the Zhou because the moral worth of the Shang [the previous dynasty] had declined and the last Shang rulers were decadent tyrants without regard for the people" (Norton 750)

· The Mandate of Heaven was used to explain the Dynastic Cycle, or the rise and fall of dynasties in China

(" Dynastic Cycle (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. " via Jshing CC BY-SA 4.0)

· The early Zhou rulers and the Mandate of Heaven set a precedent for "model behavior," meaning "the claim to power in China depended on the claim to virtuous rule, which in large meant holding to the statutes and models of the earliest sage rulers and the virtuous early Zhou kings" (Norton 750)

· This philosophical system and the Confucian Analects thus correlate to ethics, or the study of what is good and right. Can you find examples of "good" or "proper" behavior in our reading from the Analects?

Watch these website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylWORyToTo4&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUhGRh4vdb8&feature=youtu.be