Abstract
Recent years have witnessed deservedly increasing and increased publications on Daoism and its western parallels. To name but a select few, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature alone has featured Shaobo Xie’s and John (Zhong) Ming Chen’s “Jacques Derrida and Zhuang Zi: Some Analogies in their Deconstructionist Discourse on Language and Truth,” (Vol. XIX, no. 3 (Sept. 1992), 363–376) and Chen John (Zhong) Ming’s and Shaobo Xie’s “Malcolm Lowry and the Tao,” a long co-authored essay (Vol. XX, no. 3 [Sept. 1993], 355–380). Most recent and notable is Rujie Wang’s “The Mosaic of Chinese Modernism in Fiction and Film: The Aesthetics of Primitivism, Taoism, and Buddhism” (35.1–2 [May–June 2008], 14–39). This chapter joins the company of those mentioned above and examines a Canadian poet, Fred Cogswell’s carefully and sensitively developed poetics of suggestive silence, of elaboration, and of the nature and rhythms of the Dao. Given the cross-cultural nature of this study, it is not irrelevant to preface the discussion with an intriguing conversation between two English Canadian writers and critics, Margaret Atwood and Jeoffrey Hancock. In fact, what follows is partially occasioned and informed by the two major concerns they raise: a Haiku sensitivity and tradition and, relatedly, a yin-yang Daoist aesthetics, that both bear directly on Fred Cogswell’s poetics:
Unfortunately our Western mind, lacking all culture in this respect, has never devised a concept, nor even a name, for the union of opposites through the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience, which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao.
–C.G. Jung, qtd in Chang, Creativity and Taoism (6)
Wei Li and John Z. Ming Chen have contributed to this chapter, an essay published previously and re-printed here with permission.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Interestingly, part of the Chinese culture, especially Daoism or Daoist poetry and poets, is transmitted to the West through Japan. Li Bai’s “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” (Li Po or Rihaku as rendered by Pound and by the Japanese) is translated by Ezra Pound and much anthologized (de Roche 367). We thank the anonymous reader for pointing this out: Li Bai is a Taoist initiated into the Shangqing-school of Daoism of the Tang Dynasty. Dorothy Livesay (1991) mistakes the famous (to the Chinese, of course) story about Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu)’s doubling, butterfly-human or dream-reality identity as being of Japanese origin. There is no denying the Japanese changes or transformation of Chinese traditions, literary or philosophical; see Turner (1995).
- 2.
Granted that one entry is devoted to Cogswell as a critic and poet in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature (1983, 133), we have yet to see any substantial analysis of Cogswell’s poetry or poetics. John Metcalf’s comment in Kicking against the Prick is more damaging than fair, and Tracy Ware’s “Is Fred Cogswell beyond Criticism?” does not deal with his poetics at all. Perhaps Cogswell’s poetics is beyond criticism from a traditional Anglo-centric perspective.
- 3.
We wish to extend deep gratitude to the late Fred Cogswell, who had the grace to identify specific poems inspired by Daoist philosophy and poetics.
- 4.
To the best of our knowledge, a female biographer from Ottawa was conducting a research on Cogswell in 1993, and probably is now finishing a book on him.
- 5.
The term has come under increasing controversy in recent revamping of its definitions and ideological functions. Whether Japanese or Chinese nature poetry under Daoist and Chan (Zen in Japanese) influence can be categorized as lyrics as defined by Abrams (1988), Palgrave (1994, ix), or Jeffreys (1995, 196–97; 204 n. 4) is very much in question; see Pauline Yu (1988); Yue Daiyun (1992), and Sun (1987).
- 6.
The title of Sestina: 50 Meditations already reveals a great deal about Cogswell’s proclivity for the circular poetic form and for cyclicity/return of “eternal” themes.
- 7.
- 8.
WE shall deal with this aspect in terms of the Daoist poetics of negativity in another paper.
- 9.
Since this article intends to leave behind a more detailed comparison of Blake’s and Lao Tzu’s philosophy and Cogswell’s poetics for another project, we refer readers to the following similarities between Blake and Lao Tzu as articulated by Authur Waley: the fond use of paradoxes (Waley 361); the union of opposites or “the identity of contraries” (Waley 358); “distrust of purely intellectual process and of those who exalted such process at the expense of Imagination” (Waley 360); against “the stones of Law” and morality (Waley 360); “getting behind and getting underneath” (362). Cogswell’s allusions or references to Blake are quite frequent; see for instance, “A Commentary” in Watching an Eagle, 22.
- 10.
The haiku is the original opening lines of a much longer poem in the Japanese literary tradition, which is rich in its allusiveness that often or eventually harks back to classical Chinese poetry; see Kawamoto (1989).
- 11.
Such as the jueju (a quatrain of five or seven-word line) or lushi (a poem of eight lines, each line of five or seven words).
- 12.
For an enlightening discussion of short Chinese poems, or suites of them, see Joseph Ellen (1993).
- 13.
For instance, “Zen”, “Tumbling Water”, and “Mental Monism” (Meditations: 50 Sestinas) are composed in the sestina, and “Tao” (A Long Apprenticeship) in the villanelle.
- 14.
Lao Tze has the modesty and humility to inscribe its ineffability through paradoxical statements right in the initial lines of the long philosophical poem, the Tao Te Ching or Daodejing. For an informed discussion of sinologists’ and Chinese scholars’ take on this, see A.C. Graham (1989, 1992); for creative writers’ serious play or flirtations with the Tao, the most recent, and perhaps most influential work, remains TAO: Reception in East and West (Peter Lang euro-sinica series 1994) edited by Adrian Hsia, with contributions from many an illustrious comparatist and specialist; for recent major scholarship on Daoism since the new millennium, see Daoism Handbook edited by Livia Kohn.
- 15.
Kristeva’s employment of Daoism in Des chinoies is central and extensive, as are her uses of Chinese sources meticulous and accurate in “The Bounded Text”, from which the epigraph emerges.
- 16.
This point can never be over-emphasized, given that Cogswell self-consciously goes against the trend of free verse, cherishes old values, dislikes machinery or “the mechanical age” (Benjamin’s shocking expression) and adopts Eastern philosophy which is ancient, not just old. Poems such as these and the title, In Praise of Old Music, are but the most obvious examples.
- 17.
The classical Chinese text of the Tao Te Ching defies translation even into modern Chinese, let alone modern English, and Atwood as cited in the epigraph to my whole article pinpoints the problem. Even though there has been a steady stream of new English renderings recently, controversy is still rife as to the interpretation of the text. Hence, a completely satisfactory one is not yet in the offing, and we have selected passages from different English versions (all considered standard).
- 18.
We deal with this aspect in a separate paper, “In Search of ‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ (Frye) of Daoism: Cogswell’s Naturalism and Ecological Poetics.”
- 19.
See Keith 1985, 103, 105.
- 20.
To Cogswell we owe this useful information. Our thanks here.
- 21.
An English Canadian equivalent would be Robertson Davies’ play with the name of Boy(d) Staunton in Fifth Business, incurring much moral and physical ambiguity. This fascination may start with his thesis, Shakespeare’s Boy Actors (1939), though no critics have made this point. Jungian criticism in terms of the animas and anima has been employed on Fifth Business and in particular, on The Manticore, but perhaps not many scholars know that Daoism has impacted Jung to an appreciable extent (cf., Chang 1963, 5–6 and Xie and Chen 1992, 363). Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Shawyer by Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye are also comparable pieces.
- 22.
See Rey Chow 1991, 174 n. 11 and Dawson 1967, chapter 4.
- 23.
Some English versions have it as humans (ren in pinyin, as in Ellen M. Chen’s Tao Te Ching, 117); others, as man (as in D.C. Lau’s Tao Te Ching 39). For “The Daodejing and its tradition,” see Allan T. Chan (2000, 1–29).
- 24.
See Thomas Hastings‘ cross-cultural reading of Birney’s much anthologized “The Bear on the Delhi Road.” No one has critiqued Patrick Lane’s Westernized version of the East or China; but Keith Harrison’s Barthesian study (1994) is useful, even though Barthes himself has been accused of Orientalism (Chow 1991, 174).
- 25.
Other poems saturated with images of round shapes and circles can be found in “Haiku” (103) and “Haiku” (195) in A Long Apprenticeship.
- 26.
Cogswell declared this in his letter in 1994 to John M. Chen.
- 27.
We thank John Lepage for alerting the first writer to the possible “stereotypical” view that all Western philosophies are linear; the Judeo-Christian vision of history is ultimately circular: a return to God or Christ second coming are ready instances; see for example, Rivers’s two chapters, “Views of History” and “Cosmology” in Classical and Christian ideas in English Renaissance Poetry.
- 28.
For an enlightening discussion of how “progress” has changed its meaning, see John Ralston Saul’s The Doubter’s Companion; we thank Curtis and Josie Dams for alerting the first writer to this work and for a very useful discussion. For another equally skeptical view about “development” in the West, see Malcolm Lowry’s “The Forest Path to the Spring”, and Chen and Xie (1993).
- 29.
See Xie and Chen (1992).
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fort Worth: Holt, 1988.
Aldridge, Owen. “American Translations of the Tao Te Ching.” TAO: Reception in East and West.
Aldridge, Owen. Ed. Adrian Hsia. Euro-Sinica Series. Bern: Peter Lang, 1994. 47–72.
Ames, Roger T. and David Hall. Trans. Daodejing: Making this Life Significant. New York: Ballantine, 2003.
Bauer, Wolfgang. “The I and the Non-I in Laozi’s Daodejing.” TAO: Reception in East and West.
Bauer, Wolfgang. Ed. Adrian Hsia. Euro-Sinica Series. Bern: Peter Lang, 1994. 73–91.
Birney, Earle. “A Walk in Kyoto.” 20th Century Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Gary Geddes. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1985. 186–187.
Blake, William. “The Tyger.” “Milton.” Poetry. Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1988. 151. 153.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.
Chan, Allan T. “The Daodejing and its Tradition.” Daoism Handbook. Ed. Livia Kohn. Boston: Brill, 2000. 1–29.
Chang, Chung-yuan. Creativity and Taoism: A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art, and Poetry. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
Chen, E.M. The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
Chen, John (Zhong) Ming. The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2008.
Chen, John (Zhong) Ming. “The Profound Influence of Daoism on Chinese Canadian Writers. Journal of Inner Mongolia University. Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan. 2010). 117–121.
Chen, John (Zhong) Ming. “The Voyage That Never Ends:” Malcolm Lowry’s Taoist Aesthetics of Return/Renewal.” TAO: Reception in East and West. Ed. Adrian Hsia. Bern: Peter Lang, 1994. 197–216.
Chen, John (Zhong) Ming and Shaobo Xie. “Malcolm Lowry and the Tao.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Vol. XX, no. 3 (Sept. 1993). 355–380.
Ch’en, Ku-ying. Lao Tzu: Text, Notes, and Comments. Trans. Rhett Y.W. Young and Roger T. Ames. Taipei: Chinese Materials Center, 1981.
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East. Minnesota: University of Minnesota P, 1991.
Cogswell, Fred. As I See It. Ottawa: Borealis, 1994.
Cogswell, Fred. Black and White Tapestry. Ottawa: Borealis, 1989.
Cogswell, Fred. In Praise of Old Music. Ottawa: Borealis, 1992.
Cogswell, Fred. Letters. April, 1994.
Cogswell, Fred. A Long Apprenticeship. Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1980.
Cogswell, Fred. Meditations: 50 Sestinas. Charlottetown: Ragweed, 1986.
Cogswell, Fred. Pearls. Charlottetown: Ragweed, 1983.
Cogswell, Fred. “The Quiet Sunshine. . .” Inside the Poem: Essays and Poems In Honour of Donald Stephens.
Cogswell, Fred. Ed. W.H. New. Toronto: OUP, 1992. 259–260.
Cogswell, Fred. Watching An Eagle. Ottawa: Borealis, 1991.
Eliot, T.S. “Burnt Norton.” 20th Century Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Gary Geddes. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1985. 88–93.
Eoyang, Eugene. “Chaos Misread: Or, There’s Wonton in My Soup!” Comparative Literature Studies. Vol. 26, No. 3 (1989). 271–284.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Atheneum, New York, 1969.
Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969 (1947).
Graham, A.C. Chuang Tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
Graham, A.C. Disputers of the Tao. La Salle, Ilinois: Open Court, 1989.
Graham, A.C. Reason and Spontaneity. London: Curzon, 1985.
Graham, A.C. Yin-yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking. Kent Ridge, Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986.
Harrison, Keith. “Patrick Lane: Barthesian Wrestler.” Canadian Literature. No. 141 (Summer 1994). 75–83.
Jackson, Earl, Jr. “Elaboration of the Moment: the Lyric Tradition in Modern Japanese Narrative.” Literary History, Narrative, and Culture. Eds. Dissanayake and Bradbury. Hawaii: University of Hawaii, 1989. 5–12.
Jackson, Earl, Jr. “The Metaphysics of Translation and the Origins of Symbolist Poetics in Meiji Japan.” PMLA. Vol. 105, No. 2 (March 1990). 256–272.
Jeffreys, Mark. “Ideologies of Lyric: A Problem of Genre in Contemporary Anglophone Poetics.” PMLA. Vol. 10, No. 2 (March 1995). 196–205.
Kawamoto, Koji. “Basho’s Haiku and Tradition.” Comparative Literature Studies. Vol. 26, No. 3 (1989). 245–251.
Keith, W.J. Canadian Literature in English. London: Longman, 1985.
Kohn, Livia. Ed. Daoism Handbook. Boston: Brill, 2000.
Kristeva, Julia. About Chinese Women. New York: Marion Boyars, 1976.
Lau, D.C. Trans. Tao Te Ching. Hong Kong: The Chinese University P, 1982.
Lowry, Malcolm. Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place. New York: Penguin, 1961 [1979].
NacInnes, Tom. The Sayings of the Old Boy. New York: 1972.
MacLennan, Hugh. Two Solitudes. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1945.
New, W.H. A History of Canadian Literature. Houndmills, Basingstoke: MacMillan Education, 1989.
Merton, Thomas. The Sayings of Chuang Tze. New York: New Directions, 1965.
Moeller, Georg. Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet allegory. 2004.
Overmyer, Daniel L. Religions of China: The World as a Living System. San Francisco: HaperSanfrancisco, 1986.
Schirokauer, Conrad. A Brief History of Chinese Civilization. San Diego: HBJ, 1991.
Shi, Junchao. The Sayings of Chuang Chou. Hong Kong: Zhiwen Press, 1973.
Smol, Anna. “Things Speaking and Speech ‘Thinging’: Riddlic Voices and The Seafarer.” English Studies in Canada. Vol. 20, No. 3 (Sept. 1994). 249–265.
Stephens, Donald. “Tom MacInnes.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Ed. W. Toye. Toronto: OUP, 1983. 487.
Stewart, Harold. Trans. A Chime of Windbells: A Year of Japanese Haiku in English Verse. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1969.
Waley, Arthur. “Blake the Taoist.” Madly Singing in the Mountains: An Appreciation and Anthology of Arthur Waley. Ed. Ivan Morris. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 1981. 358–363.
Ware, Tracy. “Is Fred Cogswell beyond Criticism?” Essays on Canadian Writing. No. 47 (Fall 1992). 105–115.
Wood, Barry. “At the Edge of Eternity: The Forest Path to the Spring.” Canadian Literature. No. 70 (Autumn 1970). 51–58. Reprinted in Malcolm Lowry: the Writer & his Critics. Ed. Barry Wood. Ottawa: Tecumseh, 1980. 185–193.
Woodcock, George. “Balancing the Yin and the Yang.” Editorial. Canadian Literature. No. 133 (Summer 1992). 3–7.
Xie, Shaobo and John (Zhong) Ming Chen. “Jacques Derrida and Zhuang Zi: Some Analogies in their Deconstructionist Discourse on Language and Truth,” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. Vol. XIX, no. 3 (Sept. 1992). 363–376.
Yeats, W.B. “The Second Coming.” 20th Century Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Gary Geddes. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1985. 7.
Yu, Pauline. “Alienation Effects: Comparative Literature and the Chinese Tradition.” The Comparative Perspective on Literature. Eds. Clayton Koelb and Susan Noakes. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988.
Yue, Daiyun and Liu Guozang. Eds. Desire and Vision--East and West: Selected Papers on ICLA ‘91 Tokyo by Chinese Comparatists. Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshi, 1991.
Zhang, Longxi. The Tao and the Logos: Literary Hermeneutics, East and West. Durham: Duke UP, 1992.
Zhang, Longxi. “The Tao and the Logos: Notes on Derrida’s Critique of Logocentrism.” Critical Inquiry II (1985). 385–98.
Zhang, Longxi. Unexpected Affinities. Toronto: U. of TP, 2007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chen, J.Z.M., Ji, Y. (2016). Fred Cogswell’s Paradoxical Poetics of Suggestive Silence, Elaboration, and the Dao’s Nature and Rhythms. In: Canadian-Daoist Poetics, Ethics, and Aesthetics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47959-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47959-9_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-47958-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-47959-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)