Emotions across Cultures: Ancient China and Greece (Roma Sinica, 3)

Open Access It is now recognized that emotions have a history. In this book, eleven scholars examine a variety of emotions in ancient China and classical Greece, in their historical and social context. A general introduction presents the major issues in the analysis of emotions across cultures and over time in a given tradition. Subsequent chapters consider how specific emotions evolve and change. For example, whereas for early Chinese thinkers, worry was a moral defect, it was later celebrated as a sign that one took responsibility for things. In ancient Greece, hope did not always focus on a positive outcome, and in this respect differed from what we call “hope.” Daring not to do, or “undaring,” was itself an emotional value in early China. While Aristotle regarded the inability to feel anger as servile, the Roman Stoic Seneca rejected anger entirely. Hatred and revenge were encouraged at one moment in China and repressed at another. Ancient Greek responses to tragedy do not map directly onto modern emotional registers, and yet are similar to classical Chinese and Indian descriptions. There are differences in the very way emotions are conceived. This book will speak to anyone interested in the many ways that human beings feel.

It is now recognized that emotions have a history. In this book, eleven scholars examine a variety of emotions in ancient China and classical Greece, in their historical and social context. A general introduction presents the major issues in the analysis of emotions across cultures and over time in a given tradition. Subsequent chapters consider how specific emotions evolve and change. For example, whereas for early Chinese thinkers, worry was a moral defect, it was later celebrated as a sign that one took responsibility for things. In ancient Greece, hope did not always focus on a positive outcome, and in this respect differed from what we call "hope." Daring not to do, or "undaring, " was itself an emotional value in early China. While Aristotle regarded the inability to feel anger as servile, the Roman Stoic Seneca rejected anger entirely. Hatred and revenge were encouraged at one moment in China and repressed at another. Ancient Greek responses to tragedy do not map directly onto modern emotional registers, and yet are similar to classical Chinese and Indian descriptions. There are differences in the very way emotions are conceived. This book will speak to anyone interested in the many ways that human beings feel.

Preface 5 Contents 7 Introduction 9 You are What Eats at You: Anxiety in Medieval Chinese Divinatory and Medical Manuals 27 Can We Find Hope in Ancient Greek Philosophy? Elpis in Plato and Aristotle 49 A Brief History of Daring 83 Anger as an Ethnographic Trope: Changing Views from Aristotle to Seneca 151 Hatred and Revenge in Ancient China During the Qin and Han (221 B.C.-220 A.D.): The Expression of Emotions and the Conflict between Ritual and Law 177 Tragic Emotions – Then and Now 201 Analyzing the Emotions across Three Ancient Cultures: Greece, India, China 219 Gender, Social Hierarchies, and Negative Emotions in Liu Xiang’s Biographies of Women 287 Emotions, Measurement and the Technê of Practical Wisdom in Xúnzǐ’s Ethical Theory 311 Contributors 335 Index 337 Roma Sinica. Mutual interactions between Ancient Roman and Eastern Thought is an original series in classical and comparative studies. Generously supported by the SIAC (International Society of Cicero's friends), it aims to publish works concerning the relationships between Ancient Western (Greek, Roman) and Eastern (Korean, Chinese, Japanese) thought.