Aesthetic Suggestiveness in Chinese Thought

Gu, Ming Dong. 'Aesthetic Suggestiveness in Chinese Though: A Symphony of Metaphysics and Aesthetics'. Philosophy East and West, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Oct 2003). pp. 490-513. University of Hawai'i Press.

p. 490
"Suggestiveness, not articulateness, is the ideal of all Chinese art, whether it be poetry, painting, or anything else." ..... Perhaps a resonable view would be that philosophical discourse and literary thought initially grew in symbiosis, and then the latter borrowed a great deal from the former in the development of Chinese aesthetics.  Within the broader context of Chinese tradition, the Chinese concept of suggestiveness is a product of the interpenetration of and exchanges between philosophical and artistic discourses.  It is a symphony performed by metaphysics and aesthetics in harmonious accord.

In everyday discourse, suggestiveness in Chinese is called anshi (suggestion).  Literally, it means "to show something by indirectly hinting at it."  In artistic discourse, it is often coupled with the word "aesthetic" and so becomes an aesthetic principle. ..... Shen Deqiau ....."Poetry is valued for its surplus meanings.  While words refer to this, meanings reach out to that."  Fung Yu-Lan  identifies it as a poetic techniques"  "In poetry, what the poet intends to communicate is often not what is directly said in the poetry, but what is not said in it."  He also considers it an artistic effect:  "According to Chinese literary tradition, in good poetry 'the number of words is limited, but the ideas it suggests are limitless.'   So an intelligent reader of poetry reads what is outside the poem; and a good reader of books reads 'what is between the lines.'

p. 491

In traditional Chinese literary thought, there are quite a few expressions that voice similar ideas in the making of poetic art:.....(meanings beyond the expressed words), ..... (sound off the string), ..... (Images beyond the image), .....(flavors beyond the flavor), ..... (subtle reserve).  All these expressions advocate unlimited suggestiveness, which comes very close to the postmodern conceptions of unlimited semiosis and "openness."  In contemporary theory, openness means that a literary text is not an enclosure of words, the message of which are finite and limited, but a hermeneutic space constructed with verbal signs capable of generating unlimited interpretations. 

p. 493
Starting from the Wei-Jin period (220-420), as Chinese literary creation entered a self-conscious era, the study of aesthetic suggestiveness experienced a process of broadening and deepening.  However, it never disassociated itself from metaphysical discourses.
.....In this passage, .....(lingering tone) and .....(lingering flavor) are not literal but metaphysical in nature, because both refer to something that is materially absent, but potentially present and profuse.

.....Laozi expressed the paradoxical notion "The great note is rarefied in sound"
.....A distinctive note cannot represent all notes, Therefore, an audible sound is not the supreme sound.

p. 494
Laozi's idea was put into concrete poetic practice by a number of poets.  .....found in Bai Juyi's (772-846) famous "Pipa xing"  (Song of the pipa)....."The silence at that time was louder than any sound."

The Dao has a universal essence existing in everything under heaven, but it is not any of the tangible things.  It therefore does not confine itself to the qualities of any material thing.

p. 495
.....Previous scholars have also annotated yichang er santan as "one sings and three join in by sighing."  This may be a likely interpretation.  But another reading is also possible.  It may not refer to a person who sings but to a string that is plucked.  Because of vibration and the acoustic design of the instrument, other strings on the same zither resonate.  These reverberations may be the basis for the philosophical idea of "lingering sound."

p. 497
.....he [Sihong Tu] advocated that a good poem should have connotations beyond these perceptible sensations.  In so doing he paved the for the emergence of the highest aesthetic principle in Chinese poetry; rushen (entering the divine) proposed by Yan Yu: "There is only on ultimate achievement in poetry: it is called 'to enter the divine.'  When poetry enters the domain of the divine, it has reached its perfection and limit.  Nothing can be added to it.

p. 504
In contemporary Western literary thought, literary suggestiveness is called 'literary openness."  It is a concept predicated on the ontological conception of a literary text as an empty structure, constructed of words that are empty signifiers.  In metaphorical ways, some contemporary theorists have employed the analogies of an "empty basket" and an "empty shelf" to characterize the openness of a text.  These are the Western ways of representing the ontological basis of literary openness.  In traditional Chinese literary thought, the openness of a text is given a philosophical basis of ontological void similar to the empty Dao or Taiji (Great Ultimate) or Wuji (Non-Ultimate).  The essence of this ontological void is wu (nothing or imperceptible presence).

p. 508
Concluding Remarks
having conducted a dialogue between metaphysics and aesthetics, and between traditional Chinese thought and modern Western theories, I have demonstrated that, as an aesthetic, suggestiveness in the Chinese tradition has gone beyond its traditionally recognized bounds to embrace the modern ideas of unlimited semiosis and literary openness.  ...Here, I only wish to address briefly the issues that have preoccupied me for many years.  Traditional Chinese aesthetic thought was conducted in modes of thinking and expression distinctly different from the mainly analytic and reflective modes of thinking and expression of the West.

Read this last night just before bed, thought it might be a nice bed side reading.....quite wrong.  Very exciting.  Exactly the scholar material I am hunting for these days.