“The Zhuangzi and the Classic of Poetry”

Abstract

“The Zhuangzi and the Classic of Poetry” Michael Hunter Yale University, Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures mick.hunter@yale.edu Few studies of the Zhuangzi 莊子 bother even to mention the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經), no doubt because the Zhuangzi itself so rarely mentions Shi 詩 poetry.1 When it does mention them, the Zhuangzi treats the Shi primarily as objects of ru 儒 learning, a favorite punching bag.2 So when a spurious Shi is quoted in chapter 26, it isn’t out of respect for its authority: Some ru were using the Poetry and rituals to rob graves. The senior ru announced, “In the east, the risen sun, / How does the work proceed—almost done?” The junior ru said, “Robe and jacket still untied, / The mouth has got a pearl inside. As we all know, the Poetry has it, ‘Rustle-rustling is the grain, / Growing on the hill-steep. If in life you are too cheap, / How in death a pearl to keep?’” With that he pushed the hair back from the corpse’s face and patted down its beard while the senior ru with a metal chisel pulled back the cheeks and slowly separated the jaws so as not to damage the pearl inside.3 There isn’t a more savage parody in all of early Chinese literature. If the Shi could be manipulated so cynically, then they would seem to have little substance of their own as far as the Zhuangzi’s authors were concerned. 2 Nevertheless, there are reasons to reject this impression. As the most cited and referenced texts in transmitted and excavated sources from the Warring States through the Western Han, the Shi were the literary linchpin of the elite cosmopolitan culture of the Warring States period and, eventually, the early empire. Seemingly every year we hear of new Shi texts being discovered in tombs (or being looted and purchased on the antiquities market)—for example, the Shi material found among 400 bamboo strips excavated by the Jingzhou 荊州 Museum in 2014-2015 from Xiajiatai 夏嘉台 tomb M106.4 Early sources testify to the Shi’s importance in numerous ways, as when the Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan 左傳) shows elites from across the Central States quoting and decoding the Shi on diplomatic occasions, or when the Qin First Emperor’s stele inscriptions lift whole lines from the Shi.5 When the Kongzi 孔子 (Confucius; trad. 551–479 BCE) of Analects (Lunyu 論語) 16/13 tells his son, “if you don’t learn the Shi, you’ll have no way to speak,” he isn’t exaggerating.6 The Shi were the sine qua non of the early Chinese literary and intellectual scene. Modern scholars of early Chinese thought have mapped all sorts of connections between the Zhuangzi and other self-evidently philosophical works. But in an elite culture defined in part by its participants’ fluency in the Shi, we should also ask how Shi poetry might have conditioned its composition and reception.7 To that end, this paper ventures a Shi-inflected reading of two key features of the Zhuangzi. The first section tackles the enigmatic opening of chapter one, “Free-and-Easy Wandering” (Xiaoyao you 逍遙遊). I argue that the three fantastical vignettes about colossal fish and birds expose the limitations of the Shi imaginary and disrupt the operations of Shi poetics. 3 Second, I read the themes of “wandering” (you 遊) and “lodging” (yu 寓) as counterpoints to the Shi obsession with homeward, ruler-centric movements. Whether the Zhuangzi’s authors definitely knew a Shijing text like ours or were simply working within a cultural milieu influenced by Shi-style thinking is impossible to say. Either way, placing the Shi in conversation with the Zhuangzi opens up new perspectives on the development of Zhuangzian thought. Parodying the Shi If there is a work of ancient literature with a more bizarre opening than “Free-and-easy Wandering,” I’m not aware of it: In the northern darkness is a fish named Kun. It isn’t known how many thousands of li big it is. It transforms and becomes a bird named Peng. It isn’t known how many thousands of li across its back is. It rouses itself and takes flight, its wings like...