Language-Paradox-Poetics: A Chinese Perspective

In attempting to define a "poetics of paradox" from a traditional Chinese standpoint, James Liu explores through a comparative approach linguistic, textual, and interpretive problems of relevance to Western literary criticism. Liu's study evolves from a paradoxical view—originating from early Confucian and Daoist philosophical texts—that the less is "said" in poetry, the more is "meant." Such a view implied the existence of paradox in the very use of language and led traditional Chinese her...