Erin M. Cline has done a new translation of Confucius's The Analects. Her other books include The Problem of God. She is the Paul J. and Chandler M. Tagliabue Distinguished Professor in Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Georgetown University, and she lives in Washington, D.C.
Q: Why did you decide to translate Confucius’s The Analects?
A: I have taught and worked with the Analects for many years. But for those who first encounter it, the text often feels like a jumble of bits of wisdom. So, I teach it thematically, by having my students read all of the passages on a given topic, rather than having them read passages in order as they are numbered traditionally.
This allows them to make better sense of it, and it is also much closer to how traditional Confucians read the text—because they always read it with traditional commentaries that pointed them to other passages on the same topics.
My translation is reorganized thematically. So instead of encountering a jumble of passages on different topics, readers see everything the Analects has to say on a given topic like ritual or filial piety in one place.
I also wanted to translate the Analects in order to show more clearly that it is sketching a vision of a good life for all people. I use gender-inclusive language (which is actually more faithful to the original classical Chinese in which it is written).
And I correct a number of inaccuracies about women and gender that have been a part of previous translations, including leaving the term “junzi,” which refers to the best kinds of people, untranslated, rather than gendering it and translating it as “gentleman,” which I argue is a mistake.
Q: The scholar Bryan W. Van Norden said of the book, “Finally, English readers can appreciate the original vision of Confucius, who was a radical revivalist, not the staid Burkean traditionalist he is so often portrayed as.” What do you think of that assessment?
A: I am deeply honored by this assessment, especially because Bryan Van Norden is one of the translators and scholars I most admire! And I agree with him wholeheartedly that Confucius is not a staid Burkean traditionalist, but a radical revivalist!
One of my favorite features of the Analects—but one that sometimes gets lost in translation—is that it highlights the importance of preserving and reviving earlier rituals and virtues while at the same time advocating for much-needed change.
For instance, Confucius argued that we must, at times, amend and refine traditional rituals, and that if we don’t have the right feelings and attitudes when we follow traditional practices, we might as well not do them at all.
While he claimed only to be a transmitter of traditional values and not an innovator, if we look at what he was saying, we can see him both transmitting and innovating. He was transmitting a variety of traditional practices and values, but he was also putting them all together in a new way, and advocating for a number of new ideas.
Another example is that he used the term junzi not to mean the son of a lord or child of an elite, but gave it a moral sense: the junzi, for Kongzi, was the cultivated person, the exemplary person, the person we should all aim to be like.
And, he further argued, this is the person who should serve as the ruler, and not just the heir apparent or those who have enjoyed privilege, status, and wealth.
In this way, he was very much challenging the status quo. Good leadership is really about moral character, and not status, wealth, intelligence or skill. Those in leadership positions should be those who possess virtues like benevolence, generosity, humility, compassion, wisdom, fairness, and gratitude.
This is, as Prof. Van Norden points out, is a radical idea. But Kongzi was right! And his insights have a lot of relevance for us today.
Q: What do you think your translation says about the role of women in this context?
A: The Analects does not say a lot about women explicitly, but unfortunately a number of passages in the Analects have been interpreted and translated as referring to women or as saying or suggesting insulting things about women, when in fact they do not. I correct these errors, and the text reads very differently as a result.
One example is that the term junzi (which most translators render as “gentleman”), I argue, is not gendered in classical Chinese, and nothing in the Analects suggests that a woman cannot become a junzi (a cultivated person, an exemplary person).
In fact, we know that in early Confucianism, unlike in texts such as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, women were believed to be capable of cultivating roughly the same set of virtues as men; we have texts that document the lives of women from these early times and that name and celebrate their virtues and their understanding of ritual.
My translation also tackles the story of the one named woman in the Analects (Nanzi, discussed in Analects 6.28), who has been maligned throughout history. But her true story has never been told before. I uncover it for the first time.
And it is a stunning story: not only is there no reason to view her as a woman of ill repute; to the contrary, we have good reasons to think she overcame incredible hardship. I argue that hers is a story of mistaken identity; she was wrongly conflated with a different person.
But I further show that her actual story is a fascinating one: she was a woman who helped to govern when her husband failed to do his job, and who survived attempts on her life.
And she was married to one of the earliest documented men in Chinese history to have been in a same-sex relationship. In fact, his story is the source of a popular byword for male homosexuality.
All of this unfairly affected her reputation throughout Chinese history, but no one has ever put the whole story together before. My hope is to correct the record and help people to see her in a new, and more accurate, light.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: I hope they will be inspired by the aspirational ethic that the Analects presents. It insists that we can become better people, and it also outlines specific practices (like rituals) that actually help us to become kinder, more generous, and more grateful.
It offers a really compelling account of how we can live more fulfilling and meaningful lives, and how we can build rich relationships with each other.
I hope readers will find it to be a text they can open every day for inspiration and for daily wisdom that will help them to lead richer, more fulfilling lives.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on a comparative project focused on the early Daoist tradition and the Amish. Both of these traditions focus on a simple, agrarian life with limits placed on the use of technology and a different sort of education than we tend to value. Both traditions are also grounded in a deeply religious vision of what it means to live a good life and to flourish.
I am interested in how exploring them side by side can help us to learn how we, too—even those of us who live in a less counter-cultural way—might live more simply and therefore flourish to a greater extent.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I have three children and am always inspired by their experiences and challenges. I am also inspired by the example of my own parents and grandparents—something I carry with me on a daily basis.
The Analects tells us that filial piety—the deep love, affection, gratitude, and respect that children develop for loving and supportive parents who are always there for them—is the root of all of the other virtues.
One of the things I love about the Confucian tradition is that it insists on the importance of noticing and appreciating the key role that loving relationships between parents and children plays in our lives.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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