A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Cyclic Myths (Asian Thought and Culture)

Robert S. Chen

ISBN 10: 0820416754 / ISBN 13: 9780820416755

Published by Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 1992

About this Item

Seller Inventory # ABE-1737847292056

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Cyclic Myths (Asian Thought and Culture)
• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820416754
• ISBN 13: 9780820416755
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

This book is a study of the cyclic myth--a temporal schema of the unity of man and the cosmos. The cyclic myth identifies man with the periodic becoming and perpetual regeneration in nature, and guarantees personal duration against the flux of time. It has imprints on every sphere of human experience in Chinese and Western cultures. The author first traces the origin, formation, abstraction and presentation of the cyclic myth in Chinese mythology, ritual, philosophy and literature, and confirms that the cyclic ontology is the core of Chinese culture. He then adumbrates the transmutation of the cyclic mentality in the linear eschatology of the Western culture and its impact in the literature from Dante, Milton, Defoe, Stern, Goethe, Shelley and Yeats to Joyce and Beckett. The author concludes with the assertion that the cyclic myth is an informing structure of literary works and an index of cultures.

About the Author

Robert Shanmu Chen received his M.A. in Comparative Literature and his Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He has been actively involved in the media, theatre and in cross-cultural programs and has held positions as newspaper columnist, radio commentator, magazine and journal editor, and television and theatrical program director and producer. His research work and publications include areas of literature in translation, myth and archetype, utopia and utopian thought, cross-cultural study, classical and modern Chinese Literature, and television and theatrical screen play, directing and production. He is currently teaching modern Chinese novel in the University of British Columbia. He is the President of the Canadian TCSL Association, and the Executive Editor of the Canadian TCSL Journal.