The Philosophy of Change and the Metaphor of Body: From the I Ching (The Classic of Changes) to Wenxin Diaolong (Carving the Dragon With A Literary Heart)

Abstract

The I Ching (易經, Yijing, The Classic of Changes) has long been famous for its wide impact on and broad relations with research in the disciplines of philosophy, philology, and religious studies, but all-round and systematical research into its influence on Chinese literature is still rare. There is an inner logic between the I Ching and Wenxin diaolong (文心雕龍, Carving the Dragon with a Literary Heart), a masterpiece of Chinese literary criticism by Liu Xie (劉勰, 465–522 CE), revealing the ways in which Liu was inspired by the I Ching. This essay attempts to explore this inner logic by using the metaphor of the ‘body’ as a major theme in the Wenxin diaolong.