Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2024

The Mutual Learning between Chinese “Implicitness” and Western “Ambiguity” — Centered on the Relevant Expositions of William Empson, Zhang Jie and Qian Zhongshu

(Abstract)

Fan Mengyao

“Implicitness” and “ambiguity” are important conceptual categories from the perspective of Chinese and Western poetics. They are closely related, but there are also differences. William Empson’s book Seven Types of Ambiguity presents seven types of the theory of “ambiguity.” Zhang Jie, a poet of the Song Dynasty in China, emphasized the idea of implicit poetics in Sui Han Tang Poetry Notes. Qian Zhongshu has derived different rhetorical techniques from the poetic thought of “implicitness,” enriching and developing Empson’s theory of “ambiguity.”