- James Legge
James Legge (理雅各;
December 20 ,1815 –November 29 ,1897 ) was a noted Scottishsinologist , a Scottish Congregationalist, representative of theLondon Missionary Society inMalacca andHong Kong (1840–1873), and first professor of Chinese atOxford University (1876–1897). In association withMax Müller he prepared the monumental "Sacred Books of the East " series, published in 50 volumes between 1879 and 1891.Life
James Legge was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and educated at
Aberdeen Grammar School and thenKings College, Aberdeen . After studying at theHighbury Theological College ,London , he went in 1839 as amissionary toChina , but remained at Malacca three years, in charge of theAnglo-Chinese College there. The College was subsequently moved toHong Kong , where Legge lived for nearly thirty years. A Chinese Christian,Keuh Agong accompanied Legge when he moved in 1844.Legge married twice, first to Mary Isabella Morison (1816-1852) and after she died to a widow, Hannah Mary Willetts (d 1881, née Johnstone). Believing in the necessity of missionaries being able to comprehend the ideas and
culture of the Chinese, he began in 1841 a translation in many volumes of theChinese classics , a monumental task admirably executed and completed a few years before his death. During his residence in Hong Kong, he translated Chinese classic literature into English with the help of Wang Tao. He was the headmaster atYing Wa College in Hong Kong in between 1839 and 1867.In 1867, Legge returned to Dollar in
Clackmannanshire , Scotland, where he invited Wang Tao to join him, and received his LLD from theUniversity of Aberdeen in 1870. He was then pastor at Union Church, Hong Kong, 1870-1873, visited mission stations atShanghai , Chefoo (Yantai ) and Peking (Beijing ), and returned to England via Japan and the USA in 1873. In 1875 he was named Fellow ofCorpus Christi College, Oxford and in 1876 assumed the new Chair of Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford, where he attracted few students to his lectures but worked hard for some 20 years in his study at 3, Keble-terrace, over his translations of the Chinese classics. According to an anonymous contemporary obituary in thePall Mall Gazette , Legge was in his study every morning at three o'clock, winter and summer, having retired to bed at ten. When he got up in the morning the first thing he did was to make himself a cup of tea over a spirit-lamp. Then he worked away at his translations while all the household slept.In addition to his other work Legge wrote "The Life and Teaching of
Confucius " (1867); "The Life and Teaching ofMencius " (1875); "The Religions of China" (1880); and other books on Chinese literature and religion.Legge was given an honorary MA, University of Oxford, and LLD,
University of Edinburgh , 1884. Legge died atOxford in 1897 and is buried inWolvercote Cemetery . Many of his manuscripts and letters are archived at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies .elected works
* Legge, James, "The Texts of
Taoism ", 2 Vols, The Sacred Books of the East Vols. 39 & 40, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891; reissued New York: Dover, 1962), pb. Contains, in a rather archaic English and with a distinct transcription scheme: the "Tao Te Ching "; the writings ofZhuangzi ; and shorter works: the "T'ai Shang" [Tractate of Actions and Their Retributions] ; the "Ch'ing Chang Ching" [Classic of Purity] ; the "Yin Fu Ching" [or Classic of the Harmony of the Seen and Unseen] ; the "Yu Shu Ching" [Classic of the Pivot of Jade] ; and the "Hsia Yung Ching" [Classic of the Directory for the Day] .
* Legge, James, "The Chinese Classics : With A Translation, Critical And Exegetical Notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes", in five volumes, (Hong Kong : Legge ; London : Trubner, 1861–1872).
* Legge, James, "Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean" (New York: Dover Books, 1971; o.p. 1893), 503 pp. Translation of the Analects along with two other important Confucian texts. A little dated, but still worth consulting. Includes Chinese text and, as Legge himself observes, "Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena, Copious Indexes, and Dictionary of All Characters."
* Legge, James, "The Works ofMencius ", (New York: Dover Publications, 1970).References
*1911
*Norman J. Girardot, "The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) is a major reassessment of Legge and his role in creating British Sinology and European study of world religion.
*Lauren F. Pfister, "Striving for 'The Whole Duty of Man': James Legge and the Scottish Protestant Encounter with China", 2 vols., published by The Scottish Studies Centre of the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz in Germersheim, 2004.*Legge, Helen Edith (1905). [http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/CTWE/B36598859/ James Legge : Missionary & Scholar] London: Religious Tract Society. -University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, China Through Western Eyes
ee also
*
Wang Tao (19th century)
*Legge romanization External links
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* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/index.htm "Chinese Classics of the "Sacred Books of the East"] most of which translated by J. LeggePersondata
NAME=Legge, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=理雅各
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Missionary in China
DATE OF BIRTH=December 20 ,1815
PLACE OF BIRTH=Huntly, Aberdeenshire
DATE OF DEATH=November 29 ,1897
PLACE OF DEATH=Oxford ,UK
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