James Legge

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James Legge

James Legge (pronunciation: [ dʒeɪmz lɛɡ ]; * December 20, 1815 in Huntly , Aberdeenshire , Scotland , † November 29, 1897 in Oxford ) was a British sinologist and translator of classical Chinese literature and philosophy.

Life

James Legge studied at Kings College in Aberdeen and Highbury Theological College in London . After he began studying Chinese in the reading room of the British Museum in 1837/38 , he set out for the Chinese Empire in 1839 . However, he stayed in Malacca for three years en route , where he headed the Anglo-Chinese College , which aimed to train young Chinese and English in missionary work. The college was moved to Hong Kong and James Legge also went to the Crown Colony , where he spent thirty years.

In 1841 he began a large-scale translation of the Confucian classics, which he finished shortly before his death. His translator was Wang Tao, a Taiping believer . Wang Tao had fled the Qing government to Hong Kong, where he met the Scottish scientist Legge and helped him with his monumental translation of the “ Five Classics ” of Confucianism .

In 1870 Legge received an honorary doctorate (LL.D) from the University of Aberdeen and in 1884 from the University of Edinburgh . In 1876 he accepted the newly created chair for Chinese language and literature at the University of Oxford .

Fonts

literature

  • Helen Edith Legge: James Legge. Missionary and Scholar . London: Religious Tract Society, 1905. Internet Archive Digitized
  • Norman J. Girardot: The Victorian Translation of China. James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
  • Lauren Pfister: Striving for 'The Whole Duty of Man'. James Legge and the Scottish Protestant Encounter with China . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004.
  • Wang Hui: Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context. James Legge and His Two Versions of the Zhongyong. Bern etc .: Peter Lang, 2008.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Gustave Schlegel: Obituary for James Legge in: T'oung Pao 9 (1898), pp. 59-63 Internet Archive
personal data
SURNAME Legge, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British sinologist and translator
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Huntly
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1897
Place of death Oxford