From God To Universe Mind

Li-Young Lee,an acclaimed Chinese American poet,has demonstrated an enduring concern for the theme of religion with a central focus on the relationship between human and God through his five collections of poetry.Religion,particularly Christianity,not only entangles with Lee and his family’s experience of migration and exile,but also persistently haunts his spiritual world.Existing studies seem to have over-emphasized the mainstream motifs such as identity construction and cultural hybridity in the scholarly field of ethnic literature,resulting in a neglection of the representation of Christianity in Lee’s poems.In order to fill the gap,by virtue of the biblical views of love as well as the references to biblical allusions,this thesis delves into Lee’s employment of religious imagery in the metaphorical and contextual level with an emphasis on human-God relationship.In this process,the consistency and variation of the religious imagery in Lee’s five collections of poetry is also explored in juxtaposition with his life experience and philosophical idea of the universe mind.This thesis is intended as an intensive study of three categories of religious imagery:the first category includes God and heaven;the second refers to biblical characters and other images with religious allusions such as fire and water;the third contains objects such as church and candle.With these religious images,the recurrent contradiction between human and God firstly manifests itself in the tragic fate of the faithful father and simultaneously in the nature of God’s love for human.In the end,under the influence of philosophies from both the West and the East,Lee sublimates God to the status of a transcendental entity named the universe mind,thus realizing the spiritual integration of human and God.The first chapter starts with love of God represented by the figure of father.The religious imagery is first and foremost associated with Lee’s father’s faith in Christianity and position as a minister,who is further portrayed as a believer captivated by the Bible and willing to practice the Christian doctrine of universal love.Imagistically,he is also endowed with the majesty of God.Nevertheless,this love of God is constantly challenged by the earthly love ranging from sexual love,the fatherson relationship to the family kinship.Eventually,the religious imagery confirms the superiority of the earthly life.Chapter two shifts its emphasis from love of God to God’s love for human.By contextualizing the religious imagery,Lee calls God’s love into question against the social background of the anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia and the marginalized state as an immigrant of the minorities.The religious imagery presents the futility of God’s love in the face of the political persecutions,insinuating the complicity of God’s love with worldly violence.Under such circumstance,God as well as Christian doctrines stipulated in the Bible are under question.In the wake of the query of the Judeo-Christian God,chapter three interprets the way in which religious imagery represents Lee’s renegotiation of the relationship between-human and God.By incorporating philosophical ideas such as Neoplatonism and transcendentalism,Lee sublimates God to the universe mind and regards it as the divine source of human soul,thus laying the foundation for his pursuit of cosmopolitan identity as well as the violence-free love that diverges from God’s love.The access to this love is through the physical love between male and female rather than asceticism advocated by certain sectors of Christianity.In addition,the universe mind immanent in nature is enabled to communicate with human.Art,the product of the communication,becomes an alternative to religion to function as a spiritual salvation.In conclusion,embedded in two dichotomies,namely,love of God and the earthly love,God’s love to human and the political reality,the conflicts between human and God are suggested by an analysis of religious imagery through Lee’s five books of poetry.Ultimately,human and God is coordinated by the universe mind,and meanwhile Lee has made a breakthrough in his composition of poetry.