Multi-voiced Fugue Strategy for Canon Exegesis and Its Implications for Chinese Classics "Going-out"—Taking Legge's commentaries onGuanjuinThe She Kingas the case
Abstract
A comparative textual analysis of the commentaries on
Guanjuby Legge and those from traditional Chinese exegesis reveals a multi-voiced fugue strategy in Legge's meaning construction of Chinese classics with stylistic traits of Chinese commentaries, quoting and comparing different voices from commentators of different times and showing a historicized ongoing dialogue between the classics and society.Legge as a western Ru, therefore, has achieved a cross-cultural reconstruction of Chinese classics as canon exegesis.The findings suggest that cross-cultural communication of Chinese classics should take traditional Chinese classic studies as its foundation, text reasoning as its discourse strategy and cross-disciplinary perspective as its approach towards interpretive academic translation to present the local knowledge of Chinese cultural fabrics.