Xue Er
Xué Ér is the first book of the Analects of Confucius. According to Zhu Xi, a Confucian philosopher in the 12th century, the book Xue Er is the base of moral improvement because it touches upon the basic principles of being a "gentleman".
Name
Xué ''Ér'' consist of two Chinese characters. The first character, Xué, means "to learn" as a verb or "the research of something" as a noun. The following character, Ér, is a conjunction between two actions.The title of a book in the Analects is usually related to its first phrase. The book Xué Ér's initial sentence in Classical Chinese starts with "Xué Ér":
This translation uses only one verb "to learn", other versions translate the whole phrase, "Is it not a pleasure to learn 學, and, when it is timely, to practice 習 what you have learned?
Content
Xing Bing's commentary of the Analects Lunyu Zhengyi listed several key words of the book Xué Ér. The key words include: Gentleman, filial piety, humaneness, doing one's best, trust, the foundation of a nation and the principles of an appropriate friendship.In the book, Confucius opted for hospitality towards strangers and tolerance of ignorance. Confucius also emphasized on the importance of self introspection.
Usage of
In the first sentence of Xue Er, the character 說 is used.說 yuè is an obsolete form of 悅 as stated in the Collected Notes on Chapters and Sentences of the Four Books 四書章句集注,
This is also noted by Xing Bing who wrote,