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/lit/ - Literature

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11025323 No.11025323 [Reply] [Original]

What are the best commentaries (not translations) of the Tao Te Ching?

I want to read it but after taking a quick look at the first chapters I feel I won't understand a thing. I'd just like some introductory material so that I may know how to approach it instead of going in dry.

>> No.11025381

>>11025323
Not op, but what are the best translations, too?

>> No.11025423

I am Chinese and the best translation is Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes

>> No.11026188
File: 30 KB, 298x450, 147312.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11026188

this may be what you are looking for

>> No.11026207
File: 23 KB, 316x499, hackett tao.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11026207

>>11025323
>the Stephen Addis / Stanley Lombardo translation (published by Hackett)
the translation is the best I've encountered
the book itself is also a work of art, containing illustrations by calligraphy masters and the first like ("title") of each section in Chinese characters

>> No.11026211

sorry, >>11026207 was for >>11025381

>> No.11026220

>>11025323
I don't know if it's a commentary or not (a proper commentary is not possible IMHO as the Tao Te Ching is self-contained) but the Zhuangzi takes an effort at combining and contrasting the Taoism deriving from the Tao Te Ching and Confucianism

>> No.11026429

Addiss and Lombardo, Henricks, LaFargue, Lau, Komjathy are all academic translations that are at least philologically coherent.

Avoid Stephen Mitchell and Urusla LeGuin (they don't know a word of Chinese). Avoid anything by Thomas Cleary.

The classic commentary on the Daodejing was done by Wang Bi in the second century. Rudolph Wagner has written the single anglophone monograph on him, A Chinese Reading of the Daode jing: Wang Bi’s Commentary on the Laozi with Critical Text and Translation. That will be useful. You can also check out Stephen Bokencamp's Early Taoist Scriptures for his introduction to and translation of the Xianger commentary.

Honestly my favorite edition of the Daodejing is by Gu Zhengkun from Peking U. His edition has facing Chinese (with interlinear pinyin) and English. He's versed in both eastern and western philosophy, and does an excellent introduction trying to contextualize the Daodejing within the normative Kantian framework of Western philosophy.

It goes without saying, if you really want access to the Daodejing, you have to learn classical Chinese.

>> No.11026445

>>11026429
>they don't know a word of Chinese
>implying that's an issue

>> No.11027816
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11027816

>>11026188
>>11026220
>>11026429

Thanks for the replies, Anons.

I'm using this edition, which is in Spanish but has facing Chinese and transliteration. It doesn't have any notes, and the preface is rather lacking, though it briefly explains a couple of important terms, like Wu and such.

I've downloaded from libgen all the books you recommended that I could find. Let's see if I can get a grasp on the Tao Te Ching after checking them.

>It goes without saying, if you really want access to the Daodejing, you have to learn classical Chinese.

Yeah, that I know, but I'm just a regular guy who wants to read it and understand it with the limited tools and resources I have.

>> No.11027826

>>11027816
>but has facing Chinese and transliteration

As if that fucking matters

>> No.11027828

I suggest DaoDeJing: A Philosophical Translation. Has good commentaries following each translation. Relates it to modern movements in western philosophy to make things relevant but also respects its uniqueness.

>> No.11027978

>>11027826
>implying it doesn't