A Comparison of Different Views on Life and Death between Ancient Greek Culture and Chinese Culture of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism Basedon the Underworld Wandering of Odysseus and Sun Wukong
A study on ancient Greek epic Odyssey and the Chinese Ming Dynasty magic novel A Journey to the West from the cross-cultural perspective is both a time-honored subject and a brand-new one. It is time-honored because these two works are famous classic literary works that are widely spread on the occidental and the oriental nations. Researches on these two works present a splendid sight, yet the crosscultural study areas still need to be explored. It is brand-new because we want to study the subject from a new perspective, by setting up a communicative bridge between Chinese ancient culture and that of ancient Greek.Odyssey and A Journey to the West are two great literary works written in different times by people from different nations, yet they demonstrate striking similarities in various themes including the heroes' overseas wanderings and underworld wanderings. From the horizontal view, the two works own similar circuit narrative style and plot. The heroes of the stories made mistakes, they need to do the meritorious deeds to atone for his crime. With the arrangements and guidance of the Gods and Goddesses, the heroes travel abroad and fight for their lives, and can always narrowly escape death and finally return home. From the vertical view, these two works present us the life of the Gods, Man and spirits and three divisions of the heaven, the human world and the underworld. The two works are also based on some historical facts, with strong flavor of fairy tales. Both of them had their script stories settled after many years of word of mouth and correction.Underworld wandering is a popular myth motif in the worldwide literature. Through comparative research of underworld wanderings of Odysseus and Sun Wukong, we endeavor to explore the huge gaps behind the surface, the different views towards life and death between ancient Greek culture and Chinese culture of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. We can see from this comparison that under many circumstances the literary typology and literature interactions of different nations are interwoven with each other. The development of all nations' literature has never been closed and self-content with old practice, but rather a process of constantly taking in the essence of all other foreign cultures like a big sea embracing hundreds of small creeks. The Eastern and the Western civilizations have been in close contact with each other ever since the medieval times. Not totally imitating the other but rather absorbing its culture's highlights, the two civilizations during the contact created their own national features. Our ultimate purpose of studying the ancient cultures is to serve the needs of today's cultures. Through such study and research, we can deeply understand the essence of the Chinese culture with 5000 years' constant development. As literary workers, we should get deeply rooted in our tradition and merge its valuable spirit of life into the modern society, while absorbing the essence of the western culture.
汤琼. 从奥德修斯和孙悟空的冥府之旅看古希腊与儒道佛的生死观差异[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2017, 3(1): 206-.
Tang Qiong. A Comparison of Different Views on Life and Death between Ancient Greek Culture and Chinese Culture of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism Basedon the Underworld Wandering of Odysseus and Sun Wukong. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2017, 3(1): 206-.