Works-in-Progress

Guest Speaker: Jiakai Zhang

The presentation will focus on the Xiqin Quyi 西琴曲意(Eight Songs for Western Keyboard) composed by Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇 (1552-1610) in classical Chinese. Ricci was a Jesuit missionary who came to the Ming court and dedicated this collection of songs to the Wanli Emperor (萬曆皇帝) to be sung along with a keyboard instrument. I will focus on the allusions and translations of lines of Horace’s poems in this work and examine how they are loaded with the teachings of “spiritual exercises” from the Jesuit order, and at the same time, invoke passages and doctrines in classical Chinese literature. I will argue that the Horatian allusions create a unique space to manifest the debates over what one should practice and cultivate in oneself for a good life between Christianity and the schools of Chinese thought.

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Jiakai Zhang is a third-year PhD student at the Department of Classics. He works on ancient Greek literature and philosophy (especially Plato) and the reception of Greco-Roman literature in early modern China in debates and conversations with Neo-Confucianism and Christianity.