Wonder and the Aesthetics of Subjectivity in the Poetry of the Tang Dynasty (618-907)
Wonder and the Aesthetics of Subjectivity in the Poetry of the Tang Dynasty (618-907)
Referentin
Prof. Paula Varsano (UC Berkeley)
Datum und Zeit
30. März 2026, 16:15 - 17:45
Ort
Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich, Raum RAA-E-08
Inhalt
What are we reading—or, more precisely, what are we reading for—when, today, we choose to sit down and read a Chinese lyric poem from the Tang Dynasty? Aligning ourselves with some traditional readers, the answer would be: to discern something of the person who composed it. Focusing on Du Fu’s poems on paintings, this presentation examines how certain poems still seem especially adept at conjuring the presence of a believable lyric subject—not by illuminating the shadows of inner experience but by presenting those shadows for what they are. Such poems are designed not to banish uncertainty, but to provoke the only appropriate response to the presence of an absent human subject: a sense of connection that shades into wonder.
Organisation: Asien-Orient-Institut: Sinologie