Between Taoism and Confucianism: tendencies in lyric poetry of the Western Jin period

Abstract

The author argues that the coexistence of Taoism and Confucianism in the historical arena of the Western Jin dynasty led to the fact that literati in their works moved from one “end of the spectrum” to another, reflecting both the unity and opposition of these two areas of philosophical thought. Contrary to popular belief, the xuanxue philosophy did not replace Confucianism as the leading ideology, but coexisted with it. This symbiosis also led to the emergence of a “dual role” for the literati of the period in question: in their work, a poet could act both as a Confucian scribe and as a hermit, filling the poem with relevant motifs. The author provides an overview of the main trends in the poetry of Western Jin era, leading to the conclusion that the interaction of Confucianism and Taoism as the two “ends of the spectrum” of consciousness of early medieval Chinese literati. The social and political context of the era, the main ideological currents in literature and their embodiment in the poetry of the Western Jin period (265-316) are considered. The academic novelty and value of this work are due to the insufficient study of the literature of this period, not only in Russian but also in world Sinology.

Keywords

• early medieval
• chinese poetry
• chinese natural philosophy
• daoism
• zhang hua
• zuo si
• guo pu