The Tradition of Emotive Writing in the Zhuangzi and Its Echoes in Later Generations

Abstract

As the concluding part of a series of essays on theories of humanity in the Zhuangzi , this essay aims at describing the theme of qing 情 (emotion) as a dual-directional attitude towards qing as a partner to xing 性 (nature) and the influence of this domain of thought on later generations and their continued discussion of it. Faced with a forcible divorce of qing and xing at the hand of Han Dynasty Ruists, which would lock perceptions into a rigid dualist framework, the Wei and Jin period saw authors such as Wang Bi and Ji Kang return to a more faithful rendering of the theme of qing in the classics, the Laozi and Zhuangzi , seeing it become an ever more explicit philosophical topic and beginning a lengthy period of discussion of the theme of qing . In the Northern Song period, representative thinkers Zhang Zai and Wang Anshi The Northern Song tradition constitute a continuance of Pre-Qin Daoist philosophical ideas, providing a logical reinterpretation of the indivisibility of qing and xing from a syncretist approach to the Daoist and Ruist traditions, in a way that drastically differs from the Southern Song preference for xing at the cost of qing , as represented by thinkers such as the Brothers Cheng and Zhu Xi. At the bottom of it, this continued tradition draws from themes that appear in the Zhuangzi , a holistic approach to life and the relationship between humanity and nature, an important and continuous thread in the fabric of human civilisation.