On the Unification of Zhu Xi’s Poetic Theory

It appears that Zhu Xi’s poetic thought is contradictory and completely different from his contemporaries’. In fact, however, Zhu Xi based his poetic considerations on the understanding of his rationistic Confucian Philosophy so that he added a character of “‘Li’ and ‘Qi’ being of but one origin” to “literary” and “philosophical” categories. This point of view breaks the barriers of the theory that literature and philosophy hinder each other, and evades the theoretical possible misorientations caused by the theory of mutual utilization. Hence, Zhu Xi was able to locate literature firmly on the moral basis.