Zhuangzi and Laozi:
- The relationship between philosophy and literature:
GIVE GENERAL INTRO TO ZHUANGZI
A. POLITICS: the importance ascribed to literature is more often than not it’s supposed political function:
- May Fourth decision to reform China through literature speaks to this: (examples, Liang Qichao, Lu Xun (shift from medicine to literature), Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- what we call literature, is often thought of in moral and political terms, poetry is often written in the hopes of expressing political opinion and working political change, different forms of fiction are often seen as an expression of political dissatisfaction or as ways of improving government, local mores, etc. etc. (examples are found a plenty in poetry and novels); also leads to great suspicion of literary works, i.e. Hai Rui dismissed from office.
- zhuangzi here offers an alternative to this predominantly political/moral view of literature:
- his general dislike of political service (King of Chu while Zhuangzi is fishing at the river Pu); Note that his text, in contrast, to Laozi is not a political text. The Laozi offers a way of ruling, even if this is rulership by not acting and keeping the people dumb.
- his philosophical emphasis on relativity (including the difference between good/evil); often expressed very humorously, i.e. by making light of the heavy burden of literary importance.
- offers an alternative that focuses on self-cultivation, the pleasure of everyday life, of living in the time/moment.
- in the Chinese literary tradition, the idea of retreating from the life of political engagement, of cultivating other pleasures (chess, zither, cultivating flowers, whistling, opera, calligraphy, etc. etc.) becomes incredibly important:
- Examples: 1. the seven sages of the Bamboo Grove 2. Tao Qian 3. Wang Wei Irony of the apolitical political: i.e. retreating from office can be seen as a critique of the current age of rulership.
B. the importance of rhetoric and the attention to language itself.
- strong self-consciousness of the importance of language, rhetoric in Chinese philosophy
- example: when Zilu asked Confucius what the first task of government was in his view, the answer was the rectification of names.
- example2: jun jun, chen chen, fu fu, zi zi.
- think of how difficult this “literal-mindedness” is for the WRITING OF FICTION: the history of fiction starts in the writing of history, this is literally true, this actually happened, etc. Early forms of fiction, zhiguai, chuanqi claim to be historical accounts of what is true, this continues until the seventeenth-century and people such as Jin Shengtan who embrace fictionality and employ Zhuangzi to do so.
-Zhuangzi (and Taoism in general) is very critical of the stability of words, the way in which they supposedly anchor reality:
-Dao ke dao, fei chang dao; ming ke ming, fei chang ming.
-Nets are for catching fish; after one gets the fish, one forgets the net. Traps are for catching rabbits; after one gets the rabbit, one forgets the trap. Words are for getting meaning; after one gets the meaning, one forgets the words. Where can I find people who have forgotten words, and have a word with them?
-ORALITY: emphasizes the impermanence of words/writing/materiality/monumentality
-IRONY: showing the irrelevance of words, the way words are arbitrary, untrustworthy, but highly disciplined language.
-Humor and making fun of the existing rhetorical models: Zhuangzi excels at mimicking the language of others (this goes straight to the heart of what we call novel, Don Quixote makes fun of chivalric fiction), Zhuangzi makes fun of rhetoricians, logicians. If Mencius stages dialogue after dialogue of kings and the old man Mencius, Zhuangzi stages a completely fictional and hilarious dialogue between The Earl of the Yellow River and Ruo of the Northern Sea discussing the relativity of size (Autumn Floods).
- influence: emphasis on skill, rhetoric, but in a self-consciously playful and critical manner which emphasizes mimicry.
In short, Zhuangzi is important because he allows us both to recognize some of the crucial mainstream trends in Chinese literature (Confucian orthodoxy with its emphasis on social significance, political significance, and literal mindedness), as well as offers an alternative that comes much closer to what we think of nowadays of what literature is, that is an aesthetically pleasing, disinterested, tasteful pursuit of things of no significance whatsoever that emphasize fictionality, playfulness, etc.
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