William Empson And China: Symphony And Harmony Of Culture

William Empson (1906—1984) is a famous critic and a poet in Britain in the 20th century. He got thoughtful mind of a mathematician and romantic emotion of a poet. He behaved oddly and thought independently, which made him distinguish from others. The thesis studies the Empson's adoption of Chinese traditional culture and his influence on Chinese modern poetics, poetry and education in an intercultural context. As influence is bilateral illumination, it reflects the understanding and communication of heterogeneous cultures and stimulates the intercourse and harmony of Chinese and western cultures.The thesis is mainly composed of three chapters.The first chapter introduces Empson's life and poetics briefly and reveals his poetics'adoption of the concept of ambiguity in Chinese classic poetics. Because of his master I. A. Richards'relationship with China, Empson got in touch with Chinese traditional culture and found that"ambiguity"had been the intersection of Chinese and western poetics. He adopted the idea of ambiguity and classified it in more concrete ways while abandoning its generality. The unforgettable experience in China and the admiration to oriental Buddhism also had influence on the theme of Empson's poetry, which refers to Chinese culture.The second chapter indicates that Chinese modern poetics has drawn lessons from Empson's poetics and also made innovation in the background of globalization of culture. It compares Chinese modern poetics with Empson's by analyzing the poetics of some scholars such as Zhu Ziqing, Qian Zhongshu, Yuan Kejia and Liu Ruoyu. They learnt from Empson's classification of ambiguity and the close reading but transcendented the limitation of text criticism. In combination with the characteristics of Chinese character, they realized the localization of Empson's poetics successfully. Meanwhile, Empson's poetics suggests a world-minded idea which supports open-minded communication and resists authority in both academics and culture,The third chapter analyzes the similarities and differences of Chinese modern poetry and Empson's in terms of poetic contradiction of poetry, reality of content and modernist techniques, showing the influence of Empson's poetry on Chinese modern poetry as well as its inheritance and sublation to Empson's poetry. Chinese modern poetry inherited Empson's modernity in poetry but abandoned its obscurity.Being the crystal of the art of language, poetry works as a specific essence of culture. As a key to poetry and an intersection of Chinese and western poetry, ambiguity becomes a common point of Chinese and western culture. Therefore, the study of poetry and poetics means the study of culture. In the content of globalization, heterogeneous cultures should respect and understand each other as well as bilateral appreciation and absorption.