Oscar Wilde’s Reading of Zhuangzi in ‘A Chinese Sage’

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-485
Author(s):  
Jing Jiang ◽  
Chengjian Li
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Chuang Tzu

Abstract In 1889 the sinologist Herbert A. Giles published his English translation Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. The following year, Oscar Wilde wrote his long book review ‘A Chinese Sage’. This article analyses Wilde’s review and explores how Giles’ translation influences Wilde’s understanding of Zhuangzi. The article also considers the influence of Aubrey Moore, who provided some of the notes for Giles’ translations, on Wilde’s reception of Zhuangzi. Because Wilde is neither a sinologist nor a researcher of Taoism, his interpretation of Zhuangzi in ‘A Chinese Sage’ is mediated by Giles and Moore, and might be seen as a ‘misunderstanding of a misunderstanding’. Yet the influence of Zhuangzi can still be seen in Wilde’s review, and the episode raises interesting questions about the reception of Taoism in late 19th-century Britain.

Decadence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ingelbien
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Walter Pater ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Art For Art's Sake

Decadence was a word used to refer, often disparagingly, to late-19th-century European writers and artists whose credo of ‘‘art for art’s sake’’ (Dictionary of Art Historians) went hand in hand with an open disdain for morality and for the values of their own societies. Often associated with modern French literature and its influence, decadent tendencies were observed in many different countries. In England, its main representatives were Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and various figures who were inspired by French examples and by the aestheticism of Walter Pater (1839–1894). Its main features were a cult of beauty, refinement and artificiality; a fascination for the paradoxical, the bizarre, the exotic and the perverse; and an iconoclastic attitude towards dominant values. While manifestations of decadence did earn a place in fin-de-siècle London culture, the phenomenon did not survive the spectacular fall of Oscar Wilde in 1895, but some of its ideas and attitudes point forward to modernism.

Restaging Transgressive Commensality

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Jon Keune
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Double Vision ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Caste Politics ◽  
Media Formats

This chapter follows the two stories discussed in Chapter 5 into the 20th century, considering how they were represented in plays and films. Three main factors reshaped how the stories appeared on Marathi stage and screen: the narratological demands within and across media formats, equality language that had taken hold in 19th-century Marathi discourse, and the changing landscape of caste politics in the 20th century, especially the rise of non-brahman movements. Playwrights and film producers were inspired by late 19th-century biographers who had become fascinated with the social ethical dimension of stories about Eknāth. In this context, the double vision story’s transgressive commensality became especially popular in plays and films, as producers often sought to resolve the bhakti-caste question by depicting Eknāth as a social reformer.

Confucianism

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Taylor ◽  
Gary Arbuckle
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Good Conscience ◽  
Religious Material

Study of the confucian tradition is dominated by historical and philosophical approaches. Religion and spirituality have been neglected with a consistency that would be admirable if it had been used to better ends—one need only remember James Legge's comment on the amount of religious material contained in the Records of Ritual (c. 4th–1st century b.c.), and then reflect on how little work has been done on this material since he published what remains the only English translation of the Records since the late 19th century. Because the accepted frame for the portrait of the Master and his disciples has long been defined in intellectual, or at most ethical, terms, anything that fell outside that frame has been left to gather dust in outer darkness. Confucius, his teachings, and his followers were characterized as agnostic; and once their religious beliefs had been defined as undefined, they could in good conscience be left unresearched.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document