Whether literary interpretation is defensible becomes a question since Western literary theories appear to have reached a point of saturation. To make Comparative Literature a truly global and cross-cultural discipline, Chinese scholars seem too preoccupied with absorbing Western theories or suffer from their supposed “aphasia” in literary theory. We may examine xujing (虛靜, emptiness and tranquility)—a traditional Chinese concept—in conjunction with some recent pleas for “innocent reading” in the West. Obviously, neither xujing nor “innocent reading” can be taken to mean absence of consciousness or of knowledge, for without consciousness or knowledge, no mind can function at all. Instead, both concepts refer to a heightened consciousness in which the thinking mind (or “imagination”) overlooks the pseudoscientific division between subject and object. Liu Xie (劉勰) refers to the thinking mind as roaming with objects (shen yu wu you 神與物游), implying a unison between subject and object. Roger Shattuck and Helen Vendler make much of reading with “a kind of induced innocence,” presumably to achieve Susan Sontag’s “erotics” (in place of “a hermeneutics”) of art. Proposed as an essential mode of the imaginative mind in Liu Xie’s Wenxin diaolong (文心雕龍) (ch. 26), the concept of xujing originated in the philosophical thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the metaphysics of the Six Dynasties. It is probably not until Zhu Xi (朱熹) of the Sung Dynasty, however, who discussed xujing as a corollary to the concept of xushi (虛實, vacuity and tranquility vs. solidity and action, etc.). He pointed out that in putting xujing to practice, one should always bear in mind its opposite mode. In the West, as literary interpretation received a great boom after New Criticism, the concept of “innocent reading” was conceived as an antidote for the rampant, chaotic usurpation of the text which, ironically, the New Critics themselves had tried to rescue by upholding the ontology of the text. Granted that it is only human nature to have personal biases and ideological preconceptions, it does not follow that in literature we can afford to do away with “intrinsic controls.” Without joining in the stampede for correctness or scientific truth, literary interpretation will have its own validity once we recognize these controls to be part of the game. Moreover, unlike an imposed external force, these controls should well up within the reader’s mind, acting much like the centripetal force that forms a tension with the centrifugal force in Coleridge’s concept of imagination, or like the yin (陰) and xu which accompany yang (陽) and shi in traditional Chinese thoughts. Before this becomes a general picture in literary interpretation, or any communication for that matter, we have to eradicate the superstition that the “death of the author’ or the alleged “instability of meaning” justifies the birth of any kind of reading and any kind of readers.

Accounts of cannibalism from local gazetteers and historical records in China are generally linked to the desperation of famine victims. But in its literary representation in Ming-Qing fiction, cannibalism has a wide variety of types ranging from self sacrifice (not involving victimization) to aggressive and cruel devouring of innocent victims. Analyzed as a literary construct rather than an anthropological phenomenon or a historical event, cannibalism yields rich meanings in ethical, allegorical, metaphorical, and sometimes parodic aspects. This paper is a preliminary exploration of how cannibalistic portrayals problematize the issue of morality. The literary portrayals of anthropophagy related to famine, revenge, ritual, medicine, or disordered appetite, serve mainly as powerful symbols in the authors’ discourse on morality and critique of society and humanity. Some authors depict gegu (割股) cannibalism and its variations as exemplary, showing an extreme form of martyrdom. Others portray the gormandizing of human flesh as heinous violation of morality. Using cannibalism as a moralistic metaphor, the authors connect the physical body, the body politic, and the cosmos in an ethical chain, thereby manipulating this topics for didactic and satirical purposes. Because cannibalism is so excessively atrocious, it lends itself well to explorations of moral questions and reflections on traditional morality.

The paper presents some observations about the ambivalent bond between Western intellectual discourse and a developing discourse in East Asia. The two phases of Western intellectual discourse from its heroic phase to the present post-heroic phase are briefly sketched. A major dilemma of this discourse in its two phases is the dilemma of recognition. For intrinsic reasons, Western intellectual discourse has to recognize other discourses—the discourses of other cultures—as valid and legitimate. For the same reasons, such discourses have to be conceived as accessible only in an aesthetic way. In debates between Western intellectuals and those drawing from other traditions, this leads to serious problems. More often than not, the rhetoric of recognition is a surface phenomenon indicating a collapse of communication below the surface. In the second half of the paper, two points of collision between Chinese thought and Western intellectual discourse are outlined. Analogies between certain positions of postmodern theory and some aspects of Chinese thought should not be overestimated. The reception of postmodern theory in East Asia may be seen as a medium to work out an internationalized idiom for Chinese thought.

Of particular interest, and the focus of this study is Shen Chi-chi’s “Chen chung chi.” The earliest of the well known T’ang dream stories, it is distinguished by its unique style in which the dream, framed within more conventional storytelling, is narrated in a strikingly flat, prosaic manner directly modeled upon the biographical vita convention of the dynastic histories. Although scholars have occasionally touched on its style, there has been little explanation of why Shen Chi-chi chose to compose in the manner that he did. This study will suggest that Shen Chi-chi's style of narration was a deliberate device, a rhetoric designed to induce in his readers an experience parallel to that of the dream experienced by the hero of his story, a dream that eventually led to understanding of and retreat from the world. This approach to storytelling and writing should be understood in the context of a long tradition, culminating in Hung-lou meng, that recognized the “magic” of words, the potentially deep effects of reading, and the responsibilities of literature.

This article is an interview on the relationship between literary translation and comparative literature. The interviewee is Prof. Andre Lefevere, a well-known comparatist who treats the nuances between translating and translation, the rapport between translation and comparative literature, and the influences upon translation studies from other literary discourses, such as postmodernism, deconstruction and postcolonialism, whose insights will help, from a more productive perspective, situation studies in a cultural-specific context.