The Ming-Qing Theories of Literary Creation Centered on the Yi (Creative Conception)

In studying the creative process, the greatest challenge is to describe how an author transforms an insubstantial envisioning of the work-to-be into a substantial text of language. Six Dynasties critics like Lu Ji (261-303) and Liu Xie (465-520) sought to tackle this challenge but failed to illuminate the dynamic interplay between the spontaneous mind and the conscious awareness of rules in the final act of composing a text. Tang critic Wang Changling (698-756) ingeniously found a way to overcome this challenge by adapting the term yi 意from calligraphy criticism. Tang and earlier calligraphy critics used the term yi to describe a calligrapher’s visual conception of characters to be written, a mental activity that precedes and then accompanies the act of calligraphic execution. Likewise, Wang Changling employed the term yi to describe the dynamic role of the mind in the final stage of poetic composition. Following the direction of Wang Changling, Ming-Qing critics began to explore the pivotal guiding role of yi in practically all aspects of poetic composition, ranging from the accumulation of creative energy to the choice of compositional modes, structuring, the refining of emotion, selection of images, and the ordering of words. On a more theoretical level, they conceptualized yi as the means to turn lifeless poetic rules to creative tour de force. In a global context, their systematic expositions on the multifarious functions of yi in the final compositional stage fill a void conspicuously left in Western theory of the creative process.