Prof Christoph Harbsmeier, Oslo University, will speak on “Wit and Humour in Confucius: The Rhetoric of the Analects” at Abden House on Monday 19 October.
Confucius is well known as the founder of Chinese moral philosophy and teacher of strict etiquettes. This lecture will introduce a different face of Confucius the philosopher with an – ambiguous – smile.
`The Confucian Analects are read by commentators ancient and modern as an authoritative foundational text of `Confucianism`. Philologists have often claimed the Analects as an early document of conversational colloquial Chinese.I shall set out to show that the Analects are full of rhetorically highly sophisticated non-colloquial artistic prose.
I shall demonstrate how the Analects are basically pre-Confucianist in spirit. The Analects will be shown to be full of material that is manifestly ill-suited to an authoritative foundational text of a school of philosophy.
In particular, the Analects will be shown to be suffused with a delightful subtle sense of humour and self-humour in many places. It is this subtle humour which is the main subject of the present lecture.`
Christoph Harbsmeier studied Chinese at Merton College in Oxford. In addition to his position as Professor of Chinese at the University of Oslo, he serves as Adjunct Professor of Chinese at Peking University, Fudan University in Shanghai, and Zhejiang University
This special lecture will be held at Abden House, home of the Confucius Institute from 6.30-7.30pm and will be followed by a drinks reception. This event is free but ticketed. Please book your ticket through the Confucius Institute by email to info@confuciusinstitute.ac.uk.