Journey to the West

Author: Wu Cheng'en, edited by Yunqiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-03-01
Features: The creative thinking behind Journey to the West is mythic, which is a hypothetical logic derived from reality. Ancient Chinese mythology conquered natural forces through this hypothetical logic. With hypothetical logic and fiction, romanticism emerged. The origins of Chinese romantic literature seem to date back to Zhuangzi, a representative figure of the pre-Qin Daoist school. He introduced hypothetical logic into philosophical prose, making Zhuangzi, with its "Nineteen Parables," highly romantic. His masterpiece, Free and Easy Wandering, illustrates a philosophical idea: only by breaking free from all constraints, transcending infinite space and time, and wandering at ease can one become utterly independent and achieve absolute freedom. The mythical Kun Peng in the work is a fictional image. "The back of the Peng is so vast that it spans thousands of miles. When it soars in anger, its wings are like clouds hanging over the sky." "When the Peng migrates to the Southern Deep, water splashes three thousand miles as it takes off, soaring ninety thousand miles on the whirlwind of." This "Free and Easy Wandering," born from limitless imagination, drifting without direction, transcending space and time, and wandering in the boundless, is a common feature of romanticism's hypothetical logic. It forms the literary tradition of Chinese romanticism.