The Cross-Cultural Interpretation To Zen Poetics —The Evolution Of Gary Snyder’s Zen

Amer ican poet Gary Snyder establishes a constructive and comprehensive Zen poetics with Amer ican contemporary idiosyncrasies with his poetry composition, translation and theoretical work. This poetics predominantly demonstrates a commitment to guarding an idealist ic state of humankind and nature in the modernity. There are three constitutive elements: Chinese Zen thoughts with a particular focus on the poetic and aesthetic ideals of Han Shan and others, the ideals of Thoreau-styled humanist practice and American native ecological literature. This study also argues that Snyder, being one of the few American poets who have a systematic poetic theory while also write abundantly, formulates a creative cross-cultural interpretat ion of the integrity of Confucian poetics, Buddhist poetics and Taoist poetics based upon his experience and research of the oriental aesthetics. This can be analyzed in three aspects as follows:First, Snyder discovered the Buddhist general fundamentals and Zen thoughts through classical poems instead of succumbing to Buddhist denominat ionalism. Standing on the horizon of western traditional ideas, Snyder absorbed the ideas of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism intentionally or unintent ionally according to his need in writing and spir itual practice with a special focus on ecology and developed his early spir itual practice into ecocivilizat ion thoughts. This absorption contributed to his shift from early spiritual anxiety and delving into Zen meditat ion to social activism like promoting good governance and environmental protection. Poem and essay writing became his tool and flag for his active participation. What Snyder assimilated from the three religions are the ideas of how to keep a harmonious cohabitation of humankind and nature and to “dwell poetically on this earth”. It will be shown that this turning in Snyder’s thinking lies in the Chinese traditional culture expressed by the integration of the three religions and Zen thoughts. This constitutes the main contribution of this study.Second, to analysis the filiat ion of Gary Snyder ’s poems in a historical perspective, the three “China waves” in the history of world literature, especially the Great Humanism of Emerson and Thoreau’s natural writing have deep effect on Snyder ’s poems. The dissertation believes that these natural writing and literature tradition communicate Gary Snyder with the traditional thoughts of Confucianism as a bridge, couple with Snyder ’s reading of Confucianism canon, his poetics are marked with the New Confucianism which was effected by Zen and has a confluence with Zen.The dissertation considers that the body of Gary Snyder ’s poetics is the Zen ideology, but it is mixed with the Confucianism and Taoism ideology, which interpret what Gary Snyder has said “I am a Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism socialist”. There are many Zen images in Gary Snyder ’s poems which marked with Confucianism and Taoism ideology subtly. Through these Zen images, Gary Snyder contracts a natural elegant artistic conception. By this means, Gary Snyder writes poem not only as the guiding method in daily life and practice, but also as the judgment rules of art and morality to transmission the Buddhism.Specifically, the object of study of this dissertation is poem creation, the theory of poetics and translation; From the aesthetic aspect it is the syncretic of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism poetics whose main body is Zen poetics blended with Confucianism and Taoism poetics. From the research methods aspect, it discusses images, artistic conception and poetic style in Snyder ’s poems and poetics.The dissertation consists six parts. The first part is the introduction, it specifies the research status to Gary Snyder ’s poems an poetics and summarizes the reason of writing and the orientation of the dissertation, at the same time raises the questions need to be solved.The first chapter which is entitled with “Gary Snyder ’s Zen poems” inquires into the poem writing of Gary Snyder. It traces to the source of Gary Snyder ’s Zen for finding the Zen aesthetics in his poems. The chapter begins with the development of India Buddhism, then discuss the spread to China which developed into Zen and spread into Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. Zen spread into the U.S.A from Japan. This is discussed as the background of to study the Zen aesthetics in American New Culture Movement and to study Snyder ’s poem creationChapter two lay its emphasis on Snyder ’s Zen aesthetics to discuss the effect and aim of his poetics. It discusses from two aspects, one is the metaphysical the spread of Buddhism and moral judgment, the other is the practice in daily life. His Zen poetics comprises “the theory of conditioning cause” and “the concept of harmony”, at the same time, Snyder combines Zen in east and the ecological theory in west and form into his unique Buddhist ecological conception of “see you heart directly, think the things with no ponder" and “Indra net”. His Buddhist epistemology is formed from “theory of impermanence” and “the emptiness”. Reflected in daily life, his poetics can be concluded into the merging of writing and practice, it shows that Zen is poem while poem is Zen. In the view of language, there is a paradox of sayable and silence, when we contrasted with the Buddhism conception of “do not stand text” we can research the combination of language and meaning in his poetics.Chapter three discusses the relationship between poems translation and Zen aesthetics through the translation of Han-shan’s 24 poems and other 24 poems of Tang dynasty by Gary Snyder. By combing and summary to the method, means ad translating process, we can conclude that as a border crosser, Gary Snyder crosses the both sides of Pacific and makes new creation of the new Chinese classical poems by his Visualizing translation with Zen aesthetics.Chapter four traces to the source of Confucianism in Gary Snyder ’s poetics from the aspect of historism. In the background of the three Chinese waves in world literature---the effects of Chinese drama on Europe social ideas, the effects of Chinese classical poems on imagism and American Zen poems---It discusses the interpretation and reconstruction to Chinese humanism by Emerson’s transcendentalism which affected Thoreau, Ezra Pound and other poets especially Gary Snyder.Chapter five pays attention to the Taoism in Gary Snyder ’s poetics. It analyses what the Tao is in Snyder ’s poetics and how he expresses the Tao in his poems especially the important role the Taoism plays in his poetics. This chapter summarizes the Taoism aesthetic characteristics w hich are the view mode with void –quietness, preference to black and white and the loan of Taoism images.The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the central argument. Gary Snyder ’s cross-cultural Zen poet ics, represented in the images, artistic conception, genre, style and rhetoric of his poem writing by the direction of Americanized Zen aesthetics, forms into a unique system with his poetical ideas and translation. This system is diversif ied with the basic elements of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism and American native culture and is catalyzed by Chinese classical poems. Gary Snyder creates his unique cross-cultural Zen poet ics with the combination of three religions on the basis of ecology through his own writing and spiritual practice.