Abstract

This article re-examines the system of discourses in traditional Chinese poetics from the German hermeneutical perspective extending from Chladenius to Heidegger. The author also conducts a comparative research on the Vietnamese counterpart with a view to illuminating several hidden assumptions that shaped the way scholars in China and Vietnam made a critical reading of literary works. If the objective of most modern poetics has been found in the attempt to clarify the intrinsic structure of a specific piece of literature, Chinese and, to a lesser extent, Vietnamese traditional poetics tended to underline the constant relationship between a poet, who was called upon to serve Tao and Tao or Seyn, using a Heideggerian term.