Cripples and Sages in the Zhuangzi : Contextualizing the Narratives
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Studia Orientalia Slovaca |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Web časopisu Studia Orientalia Slovaca. |
| Field | Philosophy and religion |
| Keywords | China; Literature; Zhuangzi; Themes and Motives |
| Description | The Zhuangzi, as well as other books labeled as "Master texts"), consists of 33 chapters further consisting of discontinous textual passages. The whole book resembles a collage of short textual units on related (but sometimes even unrelated) topics. On the other hand, the book (or its parts) is traditionally regarded as authorial. This combinatioon often entails a reading strategy that freely picks up passages across the text and constructs a coherent philosophy (or at least coherent set of ideas) ascribed to the philosopher. This article examines the possibility to read individuial chapters (and not the book as a whole) as meaningful wholes. Chapters 5 a 6 are taken as the examples. The article reads individual units of the text in light of the respective chapters and shows how the meaning of the units is shaped by the chapter-context. The article suggests a reading strategy of the Zhuangzi, which takes the immediate context of every textual unit as the point of departure and makes it possible to construct meanings of individual passages and the whole chapters, instead of the book as the whole. |
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