A Poetics of Comparison: Euripides, Zhuangzi, and the Human Poise of Imaginative Construction

摘要

As constructive acts of imaginative making, comparative endeavors in thenstudy of religion bear descriptive, interpretive, and normative demands innways that poetry and poetics can speak to especially well. By drawingnupon poets to engage and elaborate extant theoretical concerns in com-nparative study, I present an approach for considering comparisons asnmade objects. As such, using poet Kay Ryan’s terms, I suggest “rafters”nand “ghost ribs” of various forms characterize the scholar’s methodologi-ncal structures, the religious texts at issue, and the ideals of practice emer-ngent from each. A comparison of Euripides and Zhuangzi—focusing onntheir chorus-like discursive strategies and their respective ideals of “spiri-ntual endurance” and “spiritual anticipation”—accompanies the essay’sntheoretical emphases as a preliminary example of what might be involvednin a terrain for comparative religious ethics comprised via poetics.