Text Typology
Assembled TextsThe Assembled text is gathered or selected from previously existing material. The material need not all be of one doctrinal tendency, but as assembled, it is presumed to document or support some sort of viewpoint. The "sayings" collection is perhaps the typical Assembled text, but there are many subvarieties. When the previous material had an arrangement of its own, we have the Rearranged category.
- Analects 4. This, the core module of the Analects, was itself originally a gathering of Confucius's remembered sayings, probably collected by his disciples at the time of his death in 0479. The impulse to collect them is intelligible, but it was probably also novel. Here, then, may be the first important literary innovation of the Warring States period.
- Jou Rvn. This lost work is conjectured to have consisted of sayings attributed to the unknown figure Jou Rvn. It (or he) is quoted by name in the Analects and in several other late 04c and early 03c texts. The existing fragments do not give grounds for supposing that the original compilation was later extended, and it ceases to be heard from after the middle 03c. If this conjecture about its nature is correct, the Jou Rvn would show the continued viability of the "sayings collection" type in the late 04c.
- Shr Chun. This previously unknown work was recovered in the 3rd century from the tomb of Lyang Syang-wang (died 0296) and subsequently lost once again. According to the original dig report, it consisted of the Yi oracles extracted from the Dzwo Jwan (a Chi work of c0312, which reached Ngwei soon thereafter). The Shr Chun itself is a Ngwei work of c0305. It evidently had a technical and analytical intent. The notion behind this compilation (which presumably included an analysis) has also motivated several modern scholarly articles, some of which also include the Yi oracles in Gwo Yw as relevant material. Shr Chun is the first known example of a Chinese work of purely analytical intent.
- Yw Tsung. These four Gwodyen 1 compilations of short sayings or statements are valuable early 03c specimens of the assembled text type. Sources for the material appear to be numerous; a few of them are known. There is one Analects saying, and (in a different series) also one saying which in slightly different form was later included in the Analects.
- Dz Yi. Pang Chiwing has shown (2003) that this ritual essay from the Gwodyen 1 tomb is best seen as assembled from three clusters of previously existing material. For its subsequent history in a different mode, see under Rearranged texts, and for its final destination as part of the Li Ji repertoire, see under Repertoires.
- Sywndz 27. This odd chapter within the Sywndz corpus might fruitfully be seen as a case of assembly rather than composition. There are three clearly distinguishable segments within the series, but whether these represent three sources (as in the Dz Yi, preceding), or two returns to an interrupted work of compilation, we cannot presently suggest. If the latter should prove true, SJ 27 would be classified as Layered.
- Gwandz 4 (Li Jvng). This seeming chapter is actually an assemblage of previously existing and separately titled pieces. In this case, the work of assembly done by Lyou Syang, the later editor of the Gwandz. If GZ 4 had constituted an integral unit for the very late Gwandz school, then GZ 4 as a whole, and not merely its Jyou Bai constituent, would later have been given an explicatory commentary.
- Jwangdz. Our present Jwangdz seems to be a second or third order editorial assemblage of units which themselves may have comprised historically connected accretion or accumulation sequences. The Jwangdz is among the more complex of the Warring States texts.
- Li Ji. A body of ritual treatises, some of them having a life of their own as separately circulating texts, had been more or less defined as a group in Han times. They came to be finalized (with some additions and subtractions) as a canonical repertoire only at the end of the 1st century AD. These are theoretical explications rather than performance texts, and their theoretical standpoint is disparate and sometimes conflicting. LJ may thus be described as a repertoire of convenience. For an earlier type of ritual performance text, see the lost Li under Repertoires.
Classical Chinese Texts is Copyright © 1993- by E Bruce and A Taeko Brooks
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