TY - JOUR
T1 - Gesture and the Movements of Literary Creativity
T2 - Lu Ji’s “Rhapsody on Literature”
AU - Swartz, Wendy
N1 - Funding Information:
Research for this essay was funded by a Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Scholar Grant.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Early Medieval China Group 2021.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - “That ’tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public..” —Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism” (1711) In his work of meta-literature, “Rhapsody on Literature,” Lu Ji (261–303) expounds his theories on the creative act. The rhapsody lays out the entire writing process, from reading, assimilation, and imagination or mnemonic recall to writing and its host of challenges, raising thorny questions about originality and tradition, and conception and representation. His discourse points to an overarching concern with the workings of literary creativity. The notion of gesture is key to understanding his theory of creativity, for it outlines the fitful movements and signifying potentiality of incipient ideas in the changeable current of mental cogitations and the flow and flux of language. This essay explores the figuration of gesture in Lu Ji’s theory of literary creativity.
AB - “That ’tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public..” —Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism” (1711) In his work of meta-literature, “Rhapsody on Literature,” Lu Ji (261–303) expounds his theories on the creative act. The rhapsody lays out the entire writing process, from reading, assimilation, and imagination or mnemonic recall to writing and its host of challenges, raising thorny questions about originality and tradition, and conception and representation. His discourse points to an overarching concern with the workings of literary creativity. The notion of gesture is key to understanding his theory of creativity, for it outlines the fitful movements and signifying potentiality of incipient ideas in the changeable current of mental cogitations and the flow and flux of language. This essay explores the figuration of gesture in Lu Ji’s theory of literary creativity.
KW - creativity
KW - language
KW - Lu Ji
KW - “Rhapsody on Literature,” gesture
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U2 - 10.1080/15299104.2021.1974738
DO - 10.1080/15299104.2021.1974738
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118935544
SN - 1529-9104
VL - 2021
SP - 90
EP - 100
JO - Early Medieval China
JF - Early Medieval China
IS - 27
ER -