Thoughts of Chuang Tzu in Ginsberg’s Poems

Beijing Union University,Beijing,China Email:han.ji@buu.edu.cn

Jiezhen Niu①

Beijing Union University,Beijing,China Email:jiezhen.niu@buu.edu.cn

[Abstract]The translation of and research on Ginsberg's works in Chinese academia can primarily be categorized into three fields:the long realistic poems like Howl,Kaddish,America,etc.,poems tinged with Buddhism,and poems involving images of China.Nevertheless,the thoughts of Chuang Tzu embodied in his works have not probed in depth yet.A text analysis will be employed to reveal the echoes of Chuang Tzu’s thoughts in his works,including emphasis on intuitive experience and return to“real truth”of objects,the aesthetic awareness in ugliness,and the pursuit of facing death in tranquil and transcendence.

[Keywords]Ginsberg;Chuang Tzu;authenticity;aesthetics;view of death

Introduction

As one of the main representatives of the influential poets of the Beat Generation,Allen Ginsberg has been controversial since he entered the poetic arena.He has revolutionized poetic style,featuring post-modernism not only in his personal life or way of behaviour but political assertions and the form and language employed in his works.Ginsberg,on behalf of youngsters after WWII,was profoundly affected by European existentialism which has aroused public concern for individual existence in society,triggered protests against social oppression,inspired individuals to experience egos by revealing and objecting to the social civilization and universally-accepted values.Once in his interview by Xu Haixin,Ginsberg mentioned a family tree—Whitman,Pound,Williams and then the Beat Generation.It is undeniably manifest in his poems,essays,interviews,articles and letters that he,by means of images,followed western romanticism and howled,vented and criticized in an unleashed and forceful way.Though he failed to find a panacea for disorder of the post-war American society,he did discover an alternative to reflect the reality then full of contradiction,crisis and change in eastern Zen philosophy and Chinese ancient poems.

It is universally acknowledged that Ginsberg has studied and learned from Chinese ancient poems and traditional Chinese culture.Zhang Ziqing stated in hisA History of 20th American Poetrythat“in the living well-known American poets,presumably no one knows better than him(Ginsberg)about Chinese philosophy and literature in ancient and modern times”(Zhang,1995,p.560).In Ginsberg’s letter to Zhang he mentioned he had readAnalects,Tao Te Ching,and other sayings from Mencius and Chuang Tzu,andI-Chingis a must for his reading at hand.Scholars in China primarily focus on Chinese culture embodied in Ginsberg’s thoughts and his works,in particular,eastern Zen culture or Buddhism in his peoms.Morris Dickstein pointed out that due to the influence of Buddhism,Ginsberg’s attitude towards American society has transformed from a raging revelation in the 50s into a restrained protest in the 60s.Zhang Ziqing maintained that contrary to spiritually transcending reality,Ginsberg was much concerned about political and social life through meditation.Chi Xin believes that he escaped from bustles and hustles by writing poems in a Zen way to free his shackled soul.When it comes to the effects of Taoism on the whole Beat Generation,much of discussion is given to Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth.Zhang Ziqing believes that Zen in China itself has absorbed certain morals from Confucianism,ideas of nothingness from Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu,and views on changes fromI-Ching.In addition to that,the Chinese poetry of the Tang Dynasty,Chinese traditional landscape painting,and Japanese Haiku are deeply affected by Zen philosophy.Thus,it is understandable that American poets would naturally take in those Chinese cultural elements when accepting Zen.This essay aims to probe into Ginsberg’s absorption of Chuang Tzu’s philosophy via text analysis of his poems and writing style.

SOCIAL BACKGROUND FOR ACCEPTING LAO-CHUANG THOUGHTS

Generations in the 1950s and 1960s in America have witnessed contaminated natural environment for the sake of industrialization,threats of nuclear weapons and cold war and political ultra-leftism.The public thoughts have switched from stress on construction to deconstruction,from centralism to poly-centralism,from respect for tradition to protest to convention.The Logo or ration on which the whole western society is built was unable to accept the dramatically changed social and ideological trends.Therefore,westerners again resorted to alien culture particularly oriental culture,in an attempt to take inspiration to ease the unrest and conflicts in western society and escape from cultural dilemma and personal emotional chaos.This has become the reason why Lao Tzu-Chuang Tzu(Lao-Chuang in short)thoughts could penetrate into solid western logo structure and bring fresh air to American literature.

With the booming of San Francisco Renaissance along American western coastline during the 1950s and 1960s,the Beat generation has identified those relatively free and undeveloped western land as their spiritual bases.The Beat members like Ginsberg,Kerouac and Ferlinghetti have all experienced this renaissance,among which an integral trend was translation of and reflection on Chinese traditional culture,so the Beats must have been influenced by oriental philosophy.Known as the“father of the Beats”,Kenneth Rexroth taught himself Chinese,studied Chinese calligraphy and painting and translated Chinese ancient poems and Japanese haiku.He organized a weekly salon and invited poets from the eastern part of America to come and share their philosophical and poetic theories,offering opportunities for the Beat poets to learn eastern culture.Compared to westerners’interest in Chinese Confucianism in the 19th century,their obsession was with Buddhism and Taoism during the 20th century.The main cause for western intellectuals’acceptance of Taoism after WWII lies in that they were tortured by limitation on their mind without any power to construct a new social order.The gap between the aspiration and reality forced them to retreat from revealing or questioning the society and resort to social isolation and alienation.They searched for soul inward instead of appeals outward.Their accusation of overly-industrialized machinery civilization was turned into a longing for natural beauty and truth.And these are just the essence of Lao-Chuang thoughts—avoiding contradiction and return back to what it is.In this sense,there is some reason in translating the Beat Generation into Generation withdrawing from society.

THE VIEW OF ATHENTICITY IN GINSBERG’S WRITING

No matter whether he employed Kerouac’s“spontaneous writing”or borrowed the idea that“the original thoughts are considered to be kind”from Buddhism,or embraced Williams’philosophy“no ideas but in thing”,Ginsberg has concluded his own view on poetics—first thought,best thought.By revealing the authenticity in his ideas,emotions,images or events,Ginsberg’s spontaneous and experimental writing style is in accordance with the way Chuang Tzu expressed.Chuang Tzu also emphasizes the concrete and observable way of thinking,involving a wide range of images in the natural environment like trees,grass,wind,butterflies,fish and snails in his stories.Undeniably,the natural surrounding in which Chuang Tzu lived was ecologically primitive,while having experienced two world wars and industrial revolution,the time for Ginsberg was utterly disparate.However,the attitude and the writing style of Chuang Tzu and Ginsberg are essentially consistent.

In addition,some methods Ginsberg uses in his writing—breath,singing or recitation—are similar to“thinking via circulating Qi”in Taoism.If his work imbued with unexpected images is a requirement of venting emotions and energies,he used the pace of breath to control the rhythm and emotion in his poems,ensuring his subjective thoughts integrated into objective things and attaining absolute freedom in the form and content of his poems and his own spiritual mind.In the article“the Rational and the Poetic in Ginsberg from his prose”,Wen Chu’an,by elaborating on Ginsberg’s intuitive consciousness and rational way of thinking,reveals that spontaneous writing is by no means“inconsiderateness”.(Wen,2005,p.29)As a clear echo of that,the imagination and experience in Chuang Tzu’s is also loaded with critical thinking and reasoning,and his super-linguistic-and-logic writing style is also aimed to reach the absolute liberation in mind.Just as depicted in Chuang Tzu“He(Chuang Tzu)expounded them(views)in odd and outlandish terms,in brash and bombastic language,in unbound and unbordered phrases,abandoning himself to the times without partisanship,not looking at things from one angle only.”(Chuang Tzu,p.6040)Ginsberg’s long poem is not limited by rhythm,expressing emotions in an uncurbed way,which is similar to the style of Chuang Tzu—“So he(Chuang Tzu)used‘goblet words’to pour out endless changes,‘repeated words’to give a ring of truth,and‘imputed words’to impart greater breadth.He came and went alone with the pure spirit of Heaven and earth,yet he did not view the ten thousand things with arrogant eyes”.(Chuang Tzu,p.6040)

GINSBERG’S AESTHETICS OF UGLINESS

As Ginsberg’s long and non-rhythm poems reveal the filth of urban industrialization,oppression brought by the Cold War,terror due to the threat of nuclear weapons,and moroseness of the young under political prosecution,it is not easy for readers to explicitly sense the romantic freedom and optimistic confidence in Whitman times.This writing idea that the real world should be expressed without any beautification echoes with Chuang Tzu’s aesthetics of ugliness.A large quantity of ugly or useless objects are selected by Chuang Tzu in his works like“worthless trees”,“the singular man”and“skull”.However,based on the idea of equity among any objects and being concerned with everything on the planet with an open mind,Chuang Tzu uplifts his spirit from a self-centered limitation,and found that everything exists because of its opposite(“Everthing has its‘that,’everything has its‘this.’”)(Chuang Tzu,p.610).In other words,the moment something is regarded to be“definite”,its opposite is constructed as“indefinite”.And so with the pair of“beauty”and“ugliness”.Therefore,there is no so-called“this”and“that”or“beauty”and“ugly”.And“beauty”is implied in“ugliness”.For instance,inChuang Tzu“singular man”with ugly face or disabled figures is as a matter of fact affluent in spirit and“has lost himself”.

In Ginsberg’s long memorial poem Kaddish,though his depiction of his mother’s torture and madness because of her disease can be considered as“ugliness”,the recurrence of the image“key”melts away this“ugliness”,attracting readers to attach more attention to his sympathy for,guilty about and remembrances of his mother.So the authenticity in demonstrating the“ugly”is aimed to serve the sweet emotion.As some scholars put,Ginsberg’s long poems has achieved the goal of catharses by replacing the pity and fear in ancient Greek tragedy with emotional overventing in madness and filth.

InWhite Shroud,the dream epilogue toKaddish,there are also“ugly”images that are elevated to the aesthetic“beauty”.His mother’s teeth are described as“horse molars”,“mushroom-like ray-white horseshoes of incisors”.(Ginsberg,1996,pp.354-355)Nevertheless,when facing his mother in dream,seeing that she“lived in the side alley on a mattress,...many blankets and sheets,/Pots,pans,and plates beside her...”,(p.354)the poet exclaims“she was/ content,too old to care or yell her grudge,only complaining/ her bad teeth.What a long-sought peace!”(p.355)At this moment,the poverty of life,the weakness in health,the dying status of his mom,on the contrary,enable the poet to acquire peace,and dreaming of her again has made him tearful and unregretful.“I returned/ from the Land of the Dead to living Poesy,and wrote/this tale of long lost joy,to have seen my mother again!”(p.356)

Furthermore,the contrast and then mutual fusion and conversion also exist in Ginsberg’s short poems.In a short poem entitledthe Trembling of the Veil,which depicts a tree outside a window,when constructing a very natural and tender picture(“the scarlet-and-pink shoot-tips/of budding leaves”),(Ginsberg,1996,p.5)he abruptly used a extremely real or an“ugly”metaphor—“hairy protuberance”.Thus the“beauty”and the“ugly”are presented here in this little poem,forming an authentic and intuitive experience.Likewise,in the short poemIn Back of the Real,the“ugly”is transformed and elevated into the“beauty”.In the previous stanza a“dread hay flower”is depicted,“it had a brittle black stem and corolla of yellowish dirty spikes”“like a used shaving brush”,but in the next stanza,this“yellow flower”becomes a symbol of“flower of industry”“with the form of the great yellow/Rose in your brain!”.(p.41)Here a yellow and ugly flower has been imagined as a noble yellow rose,which could reflect the writer’s aesthetic awareness.

GINSBERG’S VIEW OF DEATH

There is a deep relation between Ginsberg and the culture of Zen and Buddhism,Tibetan Buddhism in particular.Ideas and spirits of Zen have greatly affected the style of Ginsberg’s living and writing.His first poem with Buddhism-related topic—Sakyamuni:Coming out from the Mountainshows the unearthly or surreal beauty of combining Zen mind with the nature.Similarly,the thoughts of Chuang Tzu can be seen as the former“Zen”before the Indian Buddhism transmitted into China.Without taking account of those poems apparently related to Zen of Gisberg,when probing into his other poems,it can still be found that he is questing for“sudden insight”(in Chinese Dun Wu),“completeness”and“eternity”as apparently mentioned in his short poemMetaphysics.(Ginsberg,1996,p.11)This theme echoes with the thoughts advocated by Chuang Tzu.

Chuang Tzu premises his statement of birth and death on his firm belief in equality of everything with the same origin.By elaborating on how Tao is transferred into Qi and finally into a form,he insists that the human birth is originated from Qi,assembling or dissipating of which lead to birth and death of a human being.Since human birth and death result from the change of Qi,which is a natural phenomenon,people should adopt an open-minded and compatible attitude toward human life.

Three aspects are involved in achieving this attitude.People should above all listen to the true nature of life and try to form an attitude of not feeling happy for birth and sad for death.”“He who has mastered the true nature of life does not labor over what life cannot do.He who has mastered the true nature of fate does not labor over what knowledge cannot change.”(Chuang Tzu,p.3193)When Chuang Tzu’s wife died,his disciple Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences and found that Chuang Tzu“sitting with his legs sprawled out,pounding on a tub and singing”(Chuang Tzu,p.3119)instead of weeping at his wife’s death which Chuang Tzu thought to be unable to“understand anything about fate”.(Chuang Tzu,p.3127)This episode reoccurred in Ginsberg’s memorial poem to his mother Kaddish.“That leaves it open for no regret—no fear radiators,lacklove,torture even toothache in the end....There,rest.No more suffering for you....”(Ginsberg,1996,p.94)Then repetition of the phrase“no more ...”shows that the writer understands and supports his mother’s way to end her torture by death.

Secondly,people should be“obedient”to the change between birth and death.In the fable about“shadows”,Chuang Tzu says“if those things come,then I come with them;if they go,then I go with them;if they come with the Powerful Yang,then I come with the Powerful Yang.But this Powerful Yang—why ask questions about it?”(Chuang Tzu,p.5026)Likewise,Ginsberg wrote in his poem The End that“I receive all,I’ll die of cancer,I enter the coffin forever,I close my eyes,I disappear.”(Ginsberg,1996,p.115)

Finally,death in Chuang Tzu’s view means“perfect happiness”,an escape or an ultimate peace after undergoing a variety of burdens in human life.When faced with desires,Ginsberg’s attitude is“the weight is too heavy/...is given/ in solitude/ in all the excellence/ of its excess....I wanted,/ I always wanted,/ I always wanted,/ to return/to my body/where I was born.”(Ginsberg,1996,p.40)And when confronted with bustle of the city,the poet expected that“so painfully to this/countryside,this graveyard/this stillness/on deathbed or mountain/once seen/never regained or desired/in the mind to come/where all Manhattan that I’ve seen must disappear.”(Ginsberg,1996,p.86)

With respect to physical practice to transcend the issue of birth and death and achieve a peaceful state of spirit,Chuang Tzu proposes two methods—“inward”and“outward”for practice and improvement.On the one hand,inwardly one is supposed to practice“fasting of the mind”(Chuang Tzu,p.916)and“sitting down and forgetting everything”.The former means“listening with your spirit but your ears or minds”and“the spirit is empty and waits on all things”.(Chuang Tzu,p.916)The latter,in Yan Hui’s(one of Confucius’favorite disciple)words,means“smashing up my limbs and body,driving out perception and intellect,casting off form,doing away with understanding,and making himself identical with the Great Thoroughfare”.(Chuang Tzu,p.1440)The latter means that one should aim to practice being independent of outward tangible forms,forgetting about his/her physical body,eradicating all earthly burdens like lust,wisdom and hypocrisy and integrating with the Way.On the other hand,outwardly,one should strive to remove the contradictory or opposing relation based on Chuang Tzu’s thoughts of making all things equal.Take his dream of a butterfly as an example,the distinction between the object and the subject is blurred.“Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was,and the ten thousand things are one with me.”(Chuang Tzu,p.676)As a matter of fact,Ginsberg has been taking pains to attain this state of integration with external objects not only by sitting and meditation,but also expressing in his works.For instance,“Am I myself or some one else/ or nobody at all?/Then what’s this heavy flesh this/ weak heart leaky kidney?/ Who’s been doing time for 65 years/ in this corpse?Who else went/into ecstasy besides me?/No it’s all over soon,/what good was all that come?”(Ginsberg,1996,p.381)

CONCLUSION

There are primarily three foci for translation of and research on Ginsberg’s works in China,namely above all his iconic long poems that reflect post-war social reality,his poems imbued with Zen thoughts and the image of China in his poems and his view on China.Nevertheless,exploration into the Lao-Chuang thoughts in his works has not been given substantial emphasis.By doing text analysis of hisSelected Poems 1947-1995published in 1996,just as he put“this volume summaries what I deem most honest,most penetrant of my writing”,(Ginsberg,1996,p.xvii)it is apparent that his ideas are consistent with Chuang Tzu’s both of which stress intuitive experience,the authenticity of things themselves,awareness of discovering“beauty”in“ugliness”,fearlessness of death and expectation of transcendence.