Description: Ways with Words presents interpretive essays by scholars from different disciplines on seven core pre-modern classical Chinese texts. The remarkable diversity of these works -- drawn from literature, philosophy, religion, and art history -- challenges the presumption of a monolithic Chinese tradition that has been promoted by scholars and popular culture alike, both in China and the West.

The texts themselves include a poem from the Classic of Poetry compiled in the sixth century B.C.E.; passages from Mencius and Zhuangzi; the Heart Sutra; a poem by Du Fu, and the Biography of Yingying by Yuan Zhen, both written during the Tang dynasty; and Notes on the Method for the Brush, a tenth-century text attributed to Jing Hao. Both the original Chinese versions and translations are provided for each primary text. There are at least two interpretive essays -- when possible from scholars in different fields -- on each work. The volume as a whole demonstrates the various ways in which the modern Western reader can confront the impressive variety of texts from the classical Chinese tradition.

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