Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth: a Parallel Study
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Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth: A Parallel Study Lin Chen A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: Leroy Searle, Chair David Knechtges Brian Reed Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Comparative Literature ©Copyright 2014 Lin Chen University of Washington Abstract Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth: A Parallel Study Lin Chen Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Leroy Searle Comparative Literature The dissertation conducts a parallel study of a prominent Chinese poet from the early medieval period named Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth, one of the founding figures of British Romanticism, with the aim to suggest novel connections between and bring together into a constructive dialogue two of the world’s major literary cultures that are still to a large extent mutually indifferent, if not mutually exclusive, in today’s academic discourse. The chapter design is roughly symmetrical. For the named dialogue to take place, the dissertation sets out to break down the widely current dichotomy of fact and fiction in East-West literary studies by critiquing the hermeneutic approaches predominating in traditional China and the modern West, which seem in a balanced view either excessively literal-minded or to lean too much toward a denial of the factual base of the kind of lyric poetry that is manifestly autobiographical, a poetic genre in which both our master-writers obviously excelled. The remaining chapters provide novel readings of selected writings by the two poets in order to address some of the problems that are first adumbrated and yet left unresolved in the opening chapter, especially those concerning the authorial stance of Tao Yuanming and Wordsworth in their respective writings. Although discussions of the two writers are kept strictly separate in the body of the dissertation, with each chapter focused on issues of apparently local interest, the chapters do constitute a comparison, albeit of a rather oblique sort, when read together as a sequence. As a juxtapositional comparison, it attempts not only to represent and reproduce for the reader to the extent possible within the bounds of the dissertator’s interest and abilities the actual, defamiliarizing experience of reading interculturally, but also to restore considerations of the author to their rightful place and demonstrate the practicality of an authorial approach in the study of literature, especially of autobiographical writing. Contents Comparing the Incomparable: An Introduction .............................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Fact or Fiction ........................................................................................................ 29 The Dating Method Controversy ............................................................................................................ 31 A Literalist Approach ............................................................................................................................. 35 A Subjective Construct ........................................................................................................................... 43 The Clamor of Fiction ............................................................................................................................. 52 The Natural Wordsworth ........................................................................................................................ 59 Reading and Misreading ......................................................................................................................... 63 Chapter Two: The Problem of Tao Yuanming’s Poetic Self ........................................................ 84 Foundational Stage: The Six Dynasties Period ....................................................................................... 85 A Moral Turn: The Southern Song ......................................................................................................... 92 The Debate Continues ............................................................................................................................. 97 Back to the Poems ................................................................................................................................. 107 “Tears flowing, I harbor sighs within” .................................................................................................. 115 Chapter Three: Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads of 1798 ............................................................. 133 A Baffled Response .............................................................................................................................. 133 “A magnificent effort of expediency” ................................................................................................... 139 The Evolving Lyrical Voice of 1797-1798 ........................................................................................... 146 Coda: An Anomaly ............................................................................................................................... 161 Chapter Four: Wordsworth’s Excursion of 1814 ........................................................................ 172 The Poet in the “Prospectus” ................................................................................................................ 174 An Epic Failure? ................................................................................................................................... 180 Progress and Problems .......................................................................................................................... 189 “A psychomachia” ................................................................................................................................ 202 The Return of the Writer: A Conclusion .................................................................................... 225 List of Works Cited ..................................................................................................................... 231 i To my parents, and my wife, without whose love, support, and sacrifice the completion of this work would be inconceivable ii Chen 1 Comparing the Incomparable: An Introduction If you look at them from the viewpoint of their differences, from liver to gall is as far as from the state of Chu to that of Yue; if you look at them from the viewpoint of their sameness, the myriad things are all one. Zhuangzi, Chapter 51 This dissertation, as its very title suggests, conducts a parallel study of a prominent Chinese poet from the early medieval period named Tao Yuanming and William Wordsworth, one of the founding figures of British Romanticism, with the aim to suggest novel connections between and bring together into a constructive dialogue two of the world’s major literary cultures that are still to a large extent mutually indifferent, if not exclusive, in today’s academic discourse. In an educational culture that seems to thrive on the most radical kind of border-crossing and technological innovation, it is easy to overlook the novelty of the current project, which though crossing a major cultural divide, contents itself with and remains committed to the traditional medium of words. Despite the astounding progress made in recent years in such innovative areas of study as world literature and postcolonial studies, the “disincentives” from both sides of the aisle, which Pauline Yu deplored a quarter-century ago as hampering the study of Chinese literature from a comparative perspective, remain powerful: Many scholars of Western literatures may briefly lend an interested ear to someone discussing Asian literature but then lapse quickly from a rather patronizing tolerance to an all-too-visible impatience to get back to what really matters. The excuse, and it is a good one, is that the linguistic and cultural differences are so profound as to render futile or meaningless any attempts at Chen 2 serious comparative study. From the other side, the resistance has entrenched itself equally stubbornly. Hard-core sinologists often refuse to gainsay what they consider the unique difficulty of their own enterprise and cast a suspicious, if not outrightly contemptuous, eye on those who claim to know about China and something else as well. Audible sniffs, for example, convey a widespread skepticism, and even hostility, toward those presumptuous scholars not content to remain within the safe confines of a single dynasty, genre, or botanical species.2 Being the lesser of the two implied challenges haunting comparative projects like the current one, misgivings about the comparatist’s knowledge and competency are relatively easy to dispel. With absolutely no desire to subject myself to the odious charge of presumptuousness, I call attention to the modesty of what I actually “claim to know”: not the entire literary canon, in itself undoubtedly a much contested notion, of traditional China and the modern West, but two of a handful of writers that I happen to have read with special care and of whom I have attained a near-specialist knowledge, some parts of which I deem worth sharing in a relatively accessible kind of academic prose. The greater challenge, one that has unsettled and will probably continue to unsettle even a modest comparatist, so long as he or she ventures beyond a well-established cultural sphere, is the question