Transcending Cultural Relativism: A Study Of Gary Snyder's Cultural Thoughts

Gary Snyder (1930-), a famous American contemporary poet, the Pulitzer Prize winner of the year 1975, devotes himself to the promotion of the understanding and fusion of Eastern and Western cultures and the advocacy of a harmonious symbiosis of different cultures through his literary creation and activities.Snyder makes an attempt to search for the new sources of creative writing from the heterogeneous cultures with his intense and uncompromising pursuit of a cultural cross-fertilization.The author of this dissertation aims to probe into Snyder's cultural ideal from the perspective of cultural relativism, based on his books of poetry, such as "Myths & Texts"(1960),"Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems (1965)","Turtle Island (1974)","Mountains and Rivers Without End" (1996), etc, and some collection of essays, such as "Earth House Hold"(1969) and "The Old Ways"(1977).The dissertation mainly consists of four chapters.The "Introduction" part gives a brief account of the significance and the literary criticism from both American and Chinese researchers relevant to Snyder's works, presents the approach employed in this dissertation, and clarifies the outline of the present dissertation.Chapter 1 "Cultural relativism" makes a background analysis on the formation of cultural relativism, makes a further study on theoretical connotation of cultural relativism from the leading exponents of this theory, such as Franz Boas, M.J.Herskovits, and Ruth Benedict, analyzes its positive impact and limitations, and finally points out that the theory of cultural relativism is the primary source of the formation of Gary Snyder's cultural thoughts.Chapter 2 "Literary inheritance and literary innovation-Snyder's Literary Thought" deals with Snyder's creative poetic style. His poetry represents a creative blending of different cultures. For one thing, he is deeply rooted in American traditional literature. The spirit of Emerson, Thoreau and Jeffers hover over Snyder's work. But for another, he goes deep into the heterogeneous cultures, such as Native American literature, Japanese haiku and Chinese classical poetry (landscape poetry in particular). In this sense, he makes every effort to reorganize different literary patterns with the expectations of developing a creative poetic style of his own.Chapter 3 "Cultural Consciousness and Cultural Identity-Snyder's View of Culture" probes into Snyder's cultural self-consciousness and cultural identification. He makes a thorough examination of the weakness and crisis revealed by western cultures. He launches severe attacks on Christianity, anthropocentrism, industrial civilization and dualism, etc. On the other hand, he shows his strong affinity with and great respect for heterogeneous cultures. He makes efforts to explore the valuable source of literary creation from native American culture, Japanese culture and Chinese culture, which are incorporated into American traditional culture.Chapter 4 "Cultural difference and Cultural Communication-Snyder's Theory of Translation" relates to Snyder's theory of cultural translation in translating Cold Mountain's poems. He rejects ethnocentrism and various prejudices, and holds sensible views in dealing with the differences between Chinese and American culture in the process of translation. From cultural relativists'viewpoint, cultural differences are universal reality, which will bring about cultural diversity. However, the collision between two cultures will inevitably result in misreading. Snyder's "sense of nativeness" determines his "blindness" and "insights" in choosing texts,interpreting texts and representing texts."Conclusion" sums up Snyder's unremitting efforts in blending Eastern and Western cultures, and reaches a conclusion:the vision of new cultural relativism is embodied in his works, which is cultural relativism based on the principle of harmony in diversity. The author holds it that Snyder's cultural ideal is to seek a cultural harmony. His idea of "cultural harmony" is a beneficial complement to the theory of cultural relativism. Snyder's cultural practice also demonstrates that clashes between cultures are transient, while exchange is possible. The principle of harmony in diversity should be followed by different cultures.