Author's Profile: Karl S.Y. Kao works in traditional Chinese fiction and rhetoric, China-West comparative literature, and epistemology at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Previusly, he has taught at Wisconsin, Yale, Alberta, and Tsing Hua. He has published articles and books in Mandarin and in English, including "Self-reflexivity, Epistemology, and Rhetorical Figures" in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 19 (1997) and, in Mandarin, Rhetoric and the Reading of Literary Texts (Peking UP, 1997). E-mail: <hmkkao@ust.hk>.
Comparative Literature and the Ideology of Metaphor, East and West
Traditional confidence in the ability of conceptual thinking to control
the working of rhetorical figures started to receive
serious challenges in the nineteenth century. Nietzsche pointed out
that thinking is always and inseparably tied to the
rhetorical devices that are part and parcel of language itself. Not
only does the philosophical discourse lack
epistemological superiority over other kinds of discourse, it is self-deluding
for us to think that any kind of discourse
could be exempted from rhetorical penetration and contamination. Set
forth mainly in the well-known essay that
describes "truth" as a used-up, worn-out metaphor, Nietzsche's criticism
of the truth-claim of philosophical discourse as
illusory has to do with his mistrust of metaphysics. Reality and truth
are not accessible without mediation, while
interpretations and "anthropomorphisms" have their roots not in some
transcendental source but the drive to appropriate
and conquer, the "will to power" (42-47).
Deconstructive criticism follows up on this by inquiring into the problematics
of rhetoric and figural discourse, making
inquiries in this respect a fundamental aspect of its project. Both
Derrida and de Man have examined the question in
detail and exposed how thinking is bound to rhetorical devices, how
figures are connected with metaphysics and
ideology. To briefly recapitulate, in Derrida's view, the Western tradition
since the time of Plato has been confused by
the thinking that there are fixed truths and non-linguistic facts "out
there," that through the tools of reason, argumentation,
and evidence, philosophy and science could capture or uncover these
truths. This thinking follows from a belief in the
"metaphysics of presence" which, however, could never be reached or
realized through language. All discourses,
philosophical or scientific, are in reality but varieties of "writing,"
systems of signs, which are characterized by
différance and the free play of signs. The logocentric purpose,
the pursuit of "transcendental signified," arrests this play
by suppressing the difference in the sign and freezing the differing
process. This is also the moment when, in Derrida's
words within Of Grammatology (1976), "a metaphoric mediation has insinuated
itself into the relationship [between
the signifier and the signified] and has simulated immediacy" (15).
What is called "literal truth" is but a willful
interruption of the free play of language and the restriction of the
sense of the sign as determinate. As David Novitz puts
it in his 1985 article "Metaphor, Derrida, and Davidson", "When once
we freeze this play, when once we speak
determinately, we are ... speaking metaphorically" (105). In a logocentric
system, where language is used in such a
"determinate" way, speaking will appear to have definite meanings.
Philosophers have dreamt for language to be purified of its contamination
by figures and rectified of the aberration, but it is only through a "double
effacement" of the metaphor that this illusion is sustained. Exploring
the question of "metaphor
in the text of philosophy," Derrida shows in "White Mythology" that
philosophy is a "process of metaphorization which
gets carried away in and of itself" (211); it is not so much that metaphor
is in the text of philosophy but theses texts are
in metaphor. In reading a text, says Derrida in Of Grammatology
that "it is not ... a matter of inverting the literal
meaning and the figurative meaning but of determining the `literal'
meaning of writing as metaphoricity itself" (15).
The choice of a metaphor inevitably entails the positing of a perspective
or frame, a positioning of the discourse in its
"will to power." In this view, dominant values and ideologies of a
given time are supported by the ruling metaphors, as
Foucault's conception of discursive formation would also argue. Philosophy,
then, is a kind of writing that cannot help
being contaminated by metaphoricity; concepts only become such by a
process of metaphorization of language. But this
process is often hidden from epistemological scrutiny, as metaphoricity
has also often been rendered transparent and
invisible. Deconstructive reading of philosophical texts exposes how
privileged terms in Western culture, in their
striving for a metaphysics of presence, are held in place by the force
of dominant metaphors rather than undisputable
logic. Exposure of the hidden metaphor and the metaphoricity of the
text in general also disrupts the logic of rational
argument, resulting in the instability and undecidability of the meaning
of a text. As Derrida urges in Dissemination ,
"Metaphoricity is the logic of contamination and the contamination
of logic" (149). Richard Rorty remarks, in his
"Philosophy as a Kind of Writing," that the function of deconstruction
of metaphoricity in the text is to show "that there
is an alternative to the metaphysics of presence and the logocentrism
which it encourages" (98).
Like Derrida, de Man sees rhetoricity and its subversive force as the
most tenacious and inescapable characteristics of
Western literary and philosophical discourses. To him figurality is
ingrained in the act of cognition itself; no
conceptualization and abstract thinking can escape it. In the words
of his "The Epistemology of Metaphor", as "soon as
one is willing to be made aware of their epistemological implications,
concepts are tropes and tropes concepts" (21).
Rhetoricity therefore is tied to the questions of knowledge and representation.
At another level, de Man deals with the
issue of specific tropes and their literary functioning, relating them
ultimately to the question of the ideology of aesthetic
(see Norris 1988). In the Western tradition, rhetoric from the very
beginning has been opposed to logic as an alternative
faculty. The addition of grammar to the classical opposition between
logic and rhetoric to form the trivium of an integral
liberal arts education in Medieval times could be seen as a measure
introduced to diffuse the tension between oratory
and scientific discourse. Grammar is expected to work together with
logic to ensure the accuracy of language's mediation of conceptual reasoning
so that language may better represent the phenomenal reality, and through
this representation we
may gain better control of the world. At the same time, the devious
operation of rhetoric "making the worse appear as the better cause" may
be contained by its "grammatization," subjugated by the rules to serve
the enhancement of the
expressive power of language. De Man questions such an assumption of
collaborative functions. Rhetoricity is not
something added to the rules of language, but something inherent in
it. Contrary to serving language's purpose of
conveying or accurately describing reality, rhetoric cannot but disrupt
this function. As de Man sees it in Allegories of
Reading, "Rhetoric radically suspends logic and opens up vertiginous
possibilities of referential aberration" (10). Since concepts are metaphors
and language itself is structured by conflicting systems of signification,
under rigorous reading the text will deconstruct itself. Hence de Man's
dictum: "The paradigm for all texts consists of a figure (or a system of
figures) and its deconstruction" (205).
De Man also examines and reads specific figures and their cultural and
ideological valorizations. Traditionally,
metaphor is considered as the foremost trope, more powerful or fundamental
than metonymy, or for that matter, any other
tropes and figures. This privileging of metaphor over metonymy has
much to do with the fact that the former, through its
ability to induce the perception of sameness in difference, is thought
to have the power of capturing the essence of things, even providing a
hope to reach the metaphysical; whereas, metonymy, based on association
by contiguity, establishes
relations that are accidental, non-essential. With Aristotle, artists
themselves also believe in the power of metaphor. In
Proust's texts, besides being a trope of necessity as opposed to that
of arbitrariness, metaphor is considered superior to
other figures also because it has a "totalizing" ability it is superior
even to reality which can be experienced only in
fragments. For example, reading a passage from Du Coté de
chez Swann, where the young Marcel defends his preference of reading
indoors to playing outside, de Man notices that through the use of metaphors,
"Marcel's imagination finds
access to 'the total spectacle of summer,' including the attractions
of direct physical action, and that he possesses it
much more effectively than if he had been actually present in an outside
world that he then could only have known by
bits and pieces" (60). But in a close analysis, the impression of such
a total experience turns out to be created by the use
of metonymy, rather than metaphor as such, and the latter's alleged
ability to capture essences relies in fact on the
accidental contiguity effects of the former. There is an inversion
of our normal valorization of these two tropes in de
Man's reading of Proust.
De Man's deconstructive reading of metaphor corroborates his revaluation
of symbol and allegory carried out in relation
to a study of Romantic poets. Again, questioning the traditional view
held since the late eighteenth century which
assumes the superiority of symbol over allegory as a poetic mode or
device, he contests, in "The Rhetoric of
Temporality," the notion that symbol could effect the reconciliation
of man and nature. The promotion of symbol at the
expense of allegory may be related to an aesthetics that attempts to
bridge the gap between experience and the
representation of that experience. De Man describes this aesthetics
by paraphrasing Gadamer in his "The Rhetoric of
Temporality" thus: "The subjectivity of experience is preserved when
it is translated into language; the world is then
no longer seen as a configuration of entities that designates a plurality
of distinct and isolate meanings, but as a
configuration of symbols ultimately leading to a total, single, and
universal meaning" (188). For de Man, this is a
delusion. Symbol allures by its promise of organic unity and oneness
with the transcendental, which is but a
mystification. On the other hand, allegory and irony, with their operations
based on the explicit discrepancy between
signifier and signified, are considered a more authentic understanding
of language, just as temporality would serve as a
better model for the relation between figuration and interpretation.
His "allegorical reading," with an "ironization,"
exposes the discontinuity and non-identity in symbolism that the aesthetic
ideology of the "organic world" poetics which
has implications for political totalitarianism has prevented us from
seeing. Thus, Derrida and de Man both see figurality
as inherent in philosophical and literary discourses: its motivation
and function is to arrest the free play of signification
by imposing a "centric" perspective for the reading of the "proper"
meaning. Derrida sees this "logocentric" impulse
come from the drive for "the transcendental signified," the supposed
originary point of meanings. His reading exposes the figural source of
the value hierarchy and points to the instability of the text under close
scrutiny. De Man further looks to
the referential implications of figures and their disruption of the
signification process. In Resistance to Theory (1986)
de Man sees ideology as "the confusion of linguistic with natural reality,
of reference with phenomenalism" (11), his
reading thereby uncovers the ideological aberrations caused by figural
interference.
Deconstruction is a project designed for the critique of Western metaphysics;
it aims to debunk the belief that some truths external to language exist
"out there." The basic assumption about language here is its truth-claim.
Parallel to this, the
referential aberration exposed by the deconstructive reading of the
literary and philosophical texts is based on a
mimetic-representational theory of language. Early Chinese theories
of language, however, do not seem to share such an
orientation or assumption. Chad Hansen argues, for instance, in the
1985 article "Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and Truth" that early
Chinese theory of language has had a pragmatic orientation (also see Hansen's
1983 book Language and Logic in Ancient China). And neither the
tension sustained opposition between logic and rhetoric, nor anything like
the trivium of the Medieval curriculum, has been established to exert an
influence in the formation of discursive systems in this tradition. As
a consequence, a different set of problematics may have evolved in relation
to the question of
rhetoric and rhetoricity in Chinese. This will become clear from the
theories that underlie the use of metaphors or
metaphor-like figures to be discussed below. But first it might be
pointed out that not all languages have the same figures
and that the same, or equivalent, figures may not operate in exactly
the same way in different languages. Figures are
language-specific. There is a figure (trope) frequently used in early
Chinese poetry that shows operations similar to
metaphor. But closely associated with it in the same context is another
figure that has been interpreted to operate like a
metaphor, and yet at the same time functions quite differently. An
examination of these tropes in the settings of their
usages, and the controversies surrounding particularly the latter in
its readings, could throw light on the specific
ideological questions of Chinese metaphor.
Of the three basic "modes of composition" recognized in the Shijing
(Book of Songs) exegeses, bi and xing have been
considered to operate like metaphors. Bi, meaning basically
"comparison (by contiguity)," is in fact generally taken to be an equivalent
of metaphor (including simile), while xing "evocation, stirring"
often invites a metaphoric reading of the
image involved. A most important and fundamental device in early Chinese
poetry, xing continued, in a transformed
guise, to dominate the theory of poetic composition and reading for
much of the imperial period after the Han dynasty
(206 BCE to 220 CE), when the interpretation of Shijing began
to be codified. Xing's literary operations, however, are
ambiguous. They have "stirred" up much controversy in the Chinese exegetic
tradition and different attempts have been
made trying to explain how xing works or simply define what it is is
it a mode, a generic style, a kind of imagery, a
rhetorical device, or a trope? In The Reading of Imagery in the
Chinese Poetic Tradition (1987), Pauline Yu translates
xing as "stimulus" and spends ten dense pages of her book on the imagery
in the Chinese tradition to explain its history
and the various theories about it (57-67; for other essential studies
of the question of xing, see also Chou 1980; Cai 1986; Saussy 1993.
For a succinct summary of different interpretations of this term throughout
Chinese history, see the entry "fu, bi, xing" in Yue 153-56). Stephen Owen
in his Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (1992) renders the term
as "affective image" and cuts the Gordian knot of its interpretive history
with a concise explanation of the concept: "Hsing [xing]
is an image whose primary function is not signification but, rather, the
stirring of a particular affection or mood: hsing does not "refer to" that
mood; it generates it. Hsing is therefore not a rhetorical figure in the
proper sense of the term. Furthermore, the privilege of hsing over fu
and pi [bi] in part explains why traditional China did not
develop a complex classification system of rhetorical figures, such as
we find in the West. Instead there develop classifications of moods, with
categories of scene and circumstance appropriate to each. This vocabulary
of moods follows from the conception of language as the manifestation of
some integral state of mind, just as the Western rhetoric of schemes and
tropes follows from a conception of language as sign and referent" (46).
One of the most illuminating statements ever made about the nature of
Chinese poetry, this passage accords well with the
affective-expressive orientation of Chinese literature (as opposed
to the mimetic-representational one of the West). For
all its perceptiveness and explanatory efficacy, the passage's definition
of xing as "an image" however is most baffling.
The term xing is usually taken to designate not an object or
entity but an activity: an "evocation," "rousing," or "stirring"
and "generation," just as fu is "exposition" and bi "comparison."
I would like to add that Yu's translation of the term as
"stimulus" is ambiguous if not misleading as well. But from her discussion,
it is clear that the term refers not so much to
the object that stimulates as to the activity or process of stimulation
(57) and Yu's translation of the term as "stimulus"
may be motivated by the topic of her book as about the "reading of
imagery" in the Chinese tradition (this is true of Owen too). However,
xing is known for its ambiguity and this unusual translation should
evoke no surprise. Like fu and bi,
xing may be used also to refer to a mode of composition that
implies a particular kind of relationship between the image
and the mood or meaning of the poem (the thematic reading of xing imagery
is not uncommon; see below). It involves the
question of how the image is to be understood in relation to the rest
of the poem and in what way the reader may be
affected in his/her reading. The main controversy of xing is not over
its designation of a process of stimulation or
"stirring" (that leads to the generation of a mood and the affecting
of the reader by the poem). It is concerned with two
other issues: 1) Exactly how the image that serves as the stimulus
is related to the event of the poem and its mood is it
like a bi comparison? is the relationship "allegorical"? or something
else? and 2) What is the provenance of the
stimulating, affecting image is it something external that the poet
becomes aware of on the spot, or something arising
internally in his/her mind at the moment of composition? or is it a
stock image used in a formulaic composition and
typically associated with some set theme or mood the poem wants to
present or evoke? Only the first question (the
relationship between the image and the rest of the poem) is of immediate
interest to us here.
An image posed (or read) in the xing mode stirs up feelings or generates
a mood. But as the interpretive history from
Zheng Xuan (127-200) to Zhu Xi (1130-1200) has testified, there has
always been an urge to assign a thematic or
cognitive meaning to the image in the context of the poem as a whole
by an allegorical reading. The different conceptions of the image as mood-generating
and as thematic seem to suggest that a xing image operates in several ways,
and we
need to see in it a more complex structure than has been recognized.
In his analysis of metaphor "The Metaphorical
Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling," Paul Ricoeur sees
three kinds of activities as intrinsic to an interactive
metaphorical process. With an intentionality of their own, feelings
are "integrated thoughts" that "abolish the distance
between knower and the known without cancelling the cognitive structure
of thought and the intentional distance
which it implies" (154). Ricoeur alludes to Aristotle's analysis of
catharsis as well as Northrop Frye's definition of
"mood" as "the way in which a poem affects us as an icon" and as something
that gives unity to a poem (155; for an
analysis of xing imagery in terms of Ricoeur's concept of "predicative
assimilation," see Wei-qun Dai's 1991 "Xing
Again: A Formal Re-investigation"). There is a structural analogy between
the cognitive, the imaginative, and the
emotional components of the complete metaphorical act, and that "the
metaphorical process draws its concreteness and
its completeness from this structural analogy and this complementary
functioning" (157). A xing image may be seen to
have an interactive structure like a metaphor, with three similar components
or dimensions relating to three respective
processes. The semantic dimension provides the ground on which the
cognitive operation is based; it requires a thematic
reading of the image. The emotional dimension evokes feelings and leads
to the development of the poetics of moods in
Chinese tradition. With a proper metaphor, the cognitive (semantic)
dimension of the image will be dominant, while in
the case of a xing image, it is its emotional (affective) dimension
that is preeminent. Such a theory would more easily
account for the various kinds of readings in the history of Shijing
interpretations.
Ricoeur is vague in his analysis of the imaginative dimension, but this
component may be compared to another way of
traditional reading of the xing imagery. A xing image is sometimes
thought to function in such a way that it connects the
events of the poem to a larger, "cosmic" order. It can do this because
the image is said to belong to or to be correlative
of a "category" with a cosmic significance. Unlike the bi comparison
which derives its meaning from some recognizable
common semantic grounds between the two things juxtaposed, the relationship
here is based on a "categorical
correspondence" predicated on an organic view of the universe. This
relationship between a particular object and the
"category" (or class: lei) it belongs to is described as "organic,"
as that between genus and species, but from a linguistic
point of view the "semantic features" presumably shared by the two
entities are only assumed, not identified. Ultimately
the "category" itself is a metaphor; it can only be conceived and represented
metaphorically in terms, for instance, of yin
and yang which "literally" mean the sunny and shady side (respectively)
or those of the Five Elements defined as the
correlatives of the Five Directions, the Five Internal Organs, etc.
This reading may be understood as a kind of
schematization that transcends both the dimensions of senses and feelings.
Initially, a free sign that evokes a certain mood or poetic ambience,
a xing image theoretically need not incur the problem of "referential aberration"
nor succumb to the seduction and mystification of the metaphysics of presence.
However, as in the Western discourse, the desire for a determinate reading
stops the free play of meanings and the indefinite affective associations.
Ricoeur's analysis of the cognitive component of metaphor identifies, in
place of Derridian différance and
apporia, a split between "the literal incongruence and metaphorical
congruence" at the semantic level, and analogically
there is at once "a suspension and commitment" at the other levels
as well. In the Chinese context, this split, or tension, is put in terms
of "ambiguity" or "obscurity" of signification. In Wenxin diaolong (The
Literary Mind Carves Dragons),
Liu Xie (465-520) sees the commentaries given by the interpretive authorities
as a shedding of light on the originally dim configuration of meanings,
a revealing of the "correct" relationships and their significance: "It
is getting brighter but not
yet full sunlight: Thus they can be visible only after commentary has
been given" (Owen 258). Since the significance of
the image exists, presumably, a priori the authoritative interpreter's
job is point out this significance, not create one there
can be no split of reference, only "potent" meaning awaiting discovery
and revelation. In a thematic reading, the
cognitive dimension of a xing image is often given political or didactical
interpretations. Thus "the song of ospreys"
(birds that "makes a distinctions between the sexes") is said to suggest
"the virtue of the Queen Consort"). The emotive
content, on the other hand, seems more likely to escape the ideological
co-option. This aspect of the image has in fact led to the later mainstream
theory that sees poetry as a combination of jing and qing, or a fusion
of verbalized external
"scenes/situations" with that of subjective "feelings/affections."
Such a content is more or less purely aesthetical, but it is not entirely
immune to contamination. By Ricoeur's analysis, feeling involves an internalization
of the world as well as
assimilation by it. "To feel, in the emotional sense of the word, is
to make ours what has been put at a distance by
thought in its objectifying phase" (154). From an opposite perspective,
this assimilation in relation to what we "feel" is
also a self-assimilation vis a vis the world, just as we are "made
similar" in relation to what we "see." The poetic mood
of the "happy air of a good era," or the "licentious song of a degenerate
time," can be understood then as an ideological
assimilation of the feeling: it is an "interpellation" in the emotional
sense. As for the dimension of the image's
"categorical correspondence," it also yields easily to the co-option
by the state or its contending powers. Poetic images
believed to be correlative of the "alternation of Cosmic Phases" had
been enlisted, for instance, to legitimize the
overthrow of a dynasty, for the change-over in power was said to correspond
to a due course of the "natural" process
that was already reflected in the poem and that no one should try to
reverse.
As the account above indicates, the xing imagery contains in
it various dimensions that make it more complex in structure than bi.
Bi
does not occupy a predominant position in Chinese poetry as metaphor does
in Western discourse, although
the pieces in Chuci (Songs of the South) (3rd century
BCE to 2nd century CE) composed after the Book of Songs rely on
a system of imagery that is heavily emblematic (see Yu 84-117). Liu Xie
considers xing a "superior" operation to bi because the former is
"covert" and the latter "overt" (Owen 256-58). This judgment is based on
different political functions of these literary devices, on the suitability
of their linguistic mechanism for social comment. The covert xing
is more appropriate for the important task of making political and social
comments which must be done through "indirection" or circumspection. On
the other hand, the overt quality of bi makes it a more suitable
tool for philosophical argument and explanation. In this respect, there
is an inherent tendency in this trope that is ideological in nature. While
theoretically bi could emphasize contrast, distance, and dissimilarity
characteristic of Western metaphor, its metaphoric operation is based on
comparison, rather than substitution. As Michelle Yeh observes in her 1997
article "Metaphor and Bi: Western and Chinese Poetics" uses of bi
often
stress similarity (237-54), unwittingly privileging unity over diversity
and valuing continuity above break with tradition and the status quo.
Although not essential in poetry, the analogical mechanism of bi
was employed frequently in early philosophical prose
essays in the figural forms of piyu and yuyan. Functioning
mainly as an explanatory device in the contexts of both the
Confucian and Taoist discourses, yuyan refers to a parable-like
story or anecdote which sometimes also looks like an
allegory (piyu usually designates a short explanation by analogy).
Yuyan serves best in a discourse where an abstract
point is in need of concrete explanation. As such it is an important
tool frequently employed by the pre-Qin writers in
their philosophical debates and by persuaders in state policy deliberations
(the retention of many of these yuyan in the
condensed form of four-syllabic idioms in today's vocabulary also attests
to their continuing currency and vitality).
The pervasive use of yuyan in place of a syllogistic logic for
argumentation constitutes both the strength and weakness of
the philosophical discourse in early China. Using analogy to illustrate
a point, yuyan is a valid device of explanation, but generally speaking
it lacks the force of logical inference. Such a metaphorical or analogical
illustration does not
constitute a premise for a valid deduction, even though occasionally
an illustration may form the ground for a sound
inference. Usually the analogues are not homologous. But the effectiveness
and vividness of analogical yuyan give it the
ability to insinuate homologicality between the two things compared.
Like metaphor, yuyan is creative for its bringing
together two disparate, incompatible things, and this creativeness
may have enhanced the misconception of it as a figure
of proof. The way yuyan develops in the Confucian and Taoist
discourse shows a marked difference which seems to
betray the divergent ideological appropriation of the form by the two
schools of philosophy. By the Han dynasty, it was
clear that the use of yuyan had greatly diminished in frequency in
Confucian texts, its place taken by a related figure
called yongshi, i.e., historical allusion. A hallmark of the classical
literary discourse after the Han, yongshi is ostensibly
a figure also of comparison, but it has a modelling (framing) function
as well. The speaker's own situation or the current
affair is related to, compared with, the historical (or supposedly
historical) situation alluded to. This general intertextual
device of using the past as a frame of reference for the present is
appropriated by Confucianism and made a primary
device of the school to transmit, disseminate, and perpetuate its values.
The subject or the personage alluded to often
attains the quality of an archetypal symbol or cultural icon through
frequent invocations. Like the appeal to authority as an argumentative
device where the authorities are usually the "past sages," "ancient worthies,"
or Confucius himself
historical allusions look to the past to define one's own situation,
and thereby the present also carries on the traditional
values. Yongshi allusions are similar to yuyan in that both provide
a frame or standard for measuring the situation at
hand, but yuyan is usually constituted by fictitious stories whereas
yongshi involves history, reflecting a pragmatic
Confucian mentality that values wisdom derived from past experiences
rather than pure inventiveness. This particular
kind of metaphoric operation promotes to the full the tendency of bi
to emphasize similarity in comparison, and in so
doing it also makes itself lose much of metaphor's "world making" creative
power.
In contrast to this development in Confucian discourse, the yuyan
told in the Taoist texts tend to be, not only imaginary,
but fantastic in nature Zhuangzi's zhongyan parables also feature
"historical personages," but mostly only their names are historical not
the events associated with them. Zhuangzi's yuyan are made of imagery
such as the transformation of the
tiny kun-fish into a peng, a giant bird with wings spanning hundreds
of miles, soaring like a whirlwind for a journey to
the mythic "Southern Deep," and the picture of the Lord of the Yellow
River travelling downstream with autumn floods
in the survey of the vast expanses of the sea, there to carry on a
lofty conversation with the Spirit of the Ocean, which in
turn contains many fantastic yuyan anecdotes. But more importantly,
most such Taoist yuyan have images that work like
metonymy and synecdoche, rather than metaphor; there is often an ontological
common ground between the illustration
and the illustrated. For the explanation of the concept of xuanjie,
"Freedom from the Bonds," we are given in the
Zhuangzi the image of a wizened but wise old man whose left arm gets
transformed into a rooster to keep morning
watch, the right arm into a crossbow to shoot pellets, and so on. Or
to illustrate the concept of wuhua, the
"Transformation of Things," we have the intriguingly ambiguous concomitant
possibilities of a Zhuangzi himself
dreaming that he is a butterfly and/or a butterfly dreaming that it
is Zhuangzi dreaming of itself dreaming of Zhuangzi.
Besides the mise-en-abime quality of the imagery, the intended message
of "transformation" is illustrated by a not
entirely metaphorical change of a person into a different being or
an object the change is consubstantial (see Kenneth
Burke's use of the term "consubstantial." The term is used here in
a different, but related, sense).
Transformation or transmutability of things is in fact not merely a
transferring of sense, as with a metaphor, but a central
theme of Zhuangzi's philosophy. The Taoist imagination displays a belief
in physical transformation, akin to the
philosophy of tianren heyi ("Union between Man and Heaven") and the
later metaphysics of "immanent transcendence"
characteristic of Neo-Confucian thought based on the Doctrine of Mind.
Seemingly harmless in the context of "spiritual
cultivation," this belief in the transmutability of things and consubstantialism
could have consequences similar to de
Man's warning against the mystification of the aesthetics of ideology.
Zhuangzi and Liezi use the image of the True Man
(zhenren) or the Ultimate Man (zhiren), a being endowed
with the supernatural qualities of cosmic power and
impervious to fire and water, to describe the state of attainment to
Tao and the spiritual unity with the Universe. When
later converts took literally such figurative descriptions, attempting
to give a "proper" reading of the metaphoricity of thelanguage, the belief
led not only to the phenomenon of the immortality cult in the tradition
of internal alchemy. It also led to such disastrous histories as the Boxer
Uprising, which took place, not during the Han or the Six Dynasties, but
at a
time not so remote from our own.
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