Form and philosophy
Stephen Owen explains that ''Wen fu'' is a work of "both literature and literary thought", "a work of such originality that it could not have been anticipated from the works that preceded it.... nothing like it ever had been written concerning literature..." The work introduced new vocabulary of terms which remain influential, although in many cases, problematic. Moving away from questions such as the ethical purpose of literature, its social context, or the expression of personality, Lu Ji turns to the Neo-Taoist theory of mind and its cosmological basis. This philosophical stance describes the poet's mind as wandering through the microcosmos which is within his own body in search of encounters which form the origin of literary work. The ''fu'' as a poetic form was known for its verbal display, usually cataloging and listing an array of items in order to say everything that could be said on a topic. Lu presents this philosophical stance in a series of balanced elements which unfold in an orderly way. For instance, Lu balances what the poet learns from thinking against what is learned from reading. These antithetical elements are then amplified and repeated in different contexts, often with statements and counter-statements in order to avoid being one-sided. The ''Wen fu'' is rhymed, but does not employ regular rhythmic patterns: hence the term "rhymeprose". ''Wen fu'' has influenced modern poets such as Ezra Pound, Gary Snyder, Howard Nemirov, Eleanor Wilner, andTranslations
* Chen Shixiang, translator,Notes
References
* * * {{citation , first= Stephen, last =Owen, chapter =The Poetic Exposition on Literature, pages =73–181, title =Readings in Chinese Literary Thought , location = Cambridge, MA, publisher =Council on East Asian Studies Distributed by Harvard University Press , year =1992 , isbn =0-674-74920-0, url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fRDwupcvvesC&q=%22Poetic+Exposition+on+Literature%22External links