Keeping Foodhold On The Brink, And Summoning The Infinite

Zhang Zao is a typical modern poet whose work combines sensual feeling with rational philosophizing perfectly. This article intends to take the concepts node-among-human, node-between-heaven-and-human, departing-nodus, inter-node, transitional-nodus from Liu Liangjian’s book Heaven, human, node:a metaphysical exposition on Wang Chuanshan’s thoughts to elucidate Zhang Zao’s poetry as a whole.One distinguishing feature of modern society is the enlargement of the departing-nodus among human and between heaven and human which leads to many consequences. It is the cause of the formation of inwardness of man’s consciousness, yet this inwardness is full of anxiety and uneasiness. Zhang Zao disclosed this anxious inner self of the injured modern subject wonderfully, and tried to cure the trauma by invocation to reconstruct the inter-node, transitional-nodus among human and between heaven and human by trusting on the promising function of language itself.To grasp Zhang Zao’s poetry as a whole, we should see his poetic tactics as poetics of inwardness, debate and summons. Zhang Zao’s poetry proceeds from the inwardness, and brings about the summons to an idealized prospect of human communication and harmony between heaven and human through debate in the inwardness. This summons can be understood as a re-invigoration of the great classic tradition which points to make it participate in contemporary life and revive in future. It manifests the severe spiritual poverty in modern life, and this is the reason why we should read Zhang Zao’s poetry.