A New View On "Wen Zi" - From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

With the reference of the historic and academic materials and information about the waring states, this thesis discusses the origin of Wenzi by utilizing the theory of intertextuality, certifies that Tian Wen, also known as Meng Chang Jun, was its author and clarifies that the book was completed during the late period of the waring states. Through the analysis of the logics and writing styles, it is easily found that Wenzi is a Daoism book and also a hybrid of Confucianism and the schools of military strategists, legalists and Yin-Yan. This thesis also conveys that Wenzi, as both Pre-Qin Sutra materials and literary works, is not a book that was fabricated as some ancient scholars alleged and should be credited with its status among the Pre-Qin philosophers, the Chinese history of ideas and literature.dissertationIntertextuality, which embraces many mainstream modern western cultural theories, e.g. structuralism, symbolism, post- structuralism, Marxism and etc., was born in the postmodernism moves and penetrates into the literary critics of neohistoricism and feminism. It is clear that intertextuality is a versatile concept that covers many aspects of humanity researches nowadays. China sees many essays and books which analyze literary texts and cultural phenomenon through the viewpoint of intertextuality, however, only a few are focused on the ancient Chinese literature and classics, few is on Wenzi.Through the historical positivism point of view, the author combs the facts as how Chuang-tzu influenced Wenzi and displays the evidences to clarify the intertextual relation of the two, namely, Wenzi lies in the shadow of Chuang-tzu in the way of wording, citation, adoption, abbreviation and expansion. As to the ideology of Wenzi, we find it a mixture of Confucianism and the schools of legalists, Yin-Yan and military strategists, with Daoism and Confucianism as the mainstream. The writing style of Wenzi was deeply influenced by Chuang-tzu, especially in wording, while Chuang-tzu consists of allegories and Wenzi is composed of prose and verse.