www.idiocentrism.com

At g mail dot com I am emersonj.

 

UPDATE (12-05-06):
 
Warning: Some internal links lead to my old url, which has been pirated by a very unappealing porn site. I am correcting these links as fast as I can.

This project is as I left it in July, 2003, with 25 chapters translated and annotated. I am planning to resume work, but the new project will radically different than what you see here. I probably won't do a complete translation, but will just write pieces of various lengths stating my genuinely new ideas about the text.

 

HyperLao

A New Translation of Lao Tzu
by John J. Emerson


HyperLao, when finished, will consist of the following.

1. A translation of Lao Tzu based on the Ma Wang Tui texts, but with careful attention to variants, especially the Guo Dian tests. This translation will be annotated for textual and translation difficulties, and each chapter will be linked to my glosses and commentaries. Each chapter will be cross-referenced with the rest of the book, as well as with relevant authors such as Shen Tao and Chuang Tzu, and the book will be indexed. In the translation, an attempt will be made to translate the important words the same way each time they appear. Altogether this new translation will allow diligent readers of English to get closer to the thought of Lao Tzu than any other translation to date.

2. A rearranged version of the text based in part on my Journal of Chinese Religions article (cited below). This rearrangement will show the groupings within the text and mightl be useful for those trying to understand the development of the Taoist school.

3. Commentaries linked to the chapters discussed. Rather than commenting on the chapters one at the time,these commentaries will discuss the major and minor themes of the book, referencing all the appearances of the theme.

4. A glossary of key terms to which the translation will be linked. This glossary will also serve as an index. Special attention will be given to rich and ambiguous words and to puns. (My interpretation of some passages will be more conjectural than is entirely respectable, rather in the style of Ma Hsu-lun, but I do check everything against Karlgren, and I mark the guesses as such.)

5. A list of translation problems and difficult passages.

6. Bibliography of works consulted for the translation.


Chapters Translated

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63
73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
46 47 48 48 50 51 52 53 54
64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72
.               .

Everything here is still to be considered a draft, but Chapter One and what is linked to it are reasonably close to what I'm looking for.

Summary of Method

Rearrangement of Lao Tzu

Commentaries

Difficult passages

Glossary

Index

References

"Read Lao Tzu" textbook: A work in Progress


Relevant writings by the author:

"Yang Chu's Discovery of the Body", Philosophy East and West, Volume 46-4, October 1996, pp. 533-566:  The exact published version can be found on Ebsco online if you have access; this one is approximate. (Cited by Michael Nylan in Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, ed. Miller and. Hashmi, Princeton, 2001, pp. 130-131; Effortless Action, Edward Slingerland, Oxford, 2003, p. 120).

"Yang Chu in the History of Chinese Philosophy": (unpublished) .

"Family, State, and Individual in China and the West" (projected).

"Reciprocity and Reversal in Lao Tzu" (unpublished; lacks Chinese characters).

"The Highest Virtue is like the Valley" (Taoist Resources, Vol. 3, #2, May, 1992, pp. 47-61: lacks Chinese characters).

"Hun-Tun, Strangeness, and Transformation": projected.

"Wu-wei: Reality before Questioning": projected

"A Stratification of Lao Tzu" (Journal of Chinese Religions, #23, 1995, pp. 1-28.

New theory of the stratification of Lao Tzu based on the Guodian text; supercedes the above.

Thoreau Journal Quarterly, 12, Apr. 1980, pp. 5-14:"Thoreau's Construction of Taoism" (not available online).

"Who was Lao Tzu?" (unpublished).

Large bibliography of Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese Literature, and Chinese Culture, with Comparative Materials.