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Dickinson's Dao
Author(s) -
Kang Yanbin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/oli.12178
Subject(s) - surrender , buddhism , aesthetics , action (physics) , perspective (graphical) , philosophy , focus (optics) , epistemology , literature , art , history , theology , visual arts , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , optics
Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of the epistemic advantage of a cultural outsider, this essay seeks to enrich the newly developed Chinese critical perspective of rereading Emily Dickinson by arguing that Dickinson's explorations of spiritual ideals resonate with Daoism and Chan Buddhism in their focus upon non‐action as a perfect action that entails consummate skills, sensuous eradication, and egoless aesthetics. Specifically, Dickinson uses the perfect actions to illustrate wandering (staying) at ease; she uses dropping‐brain to emblematize eradicating senses; she exhorts self‐surrender and non‐interference when dealing with the other; and she practices an egoless aesthetics that surpasses her predecessors and contemporaries.[Note 2. I would like to thank Adam Katz, Tom Patterson, ...]