Name: Vu Hanh Trang

Troy ID: 1605136

Class: ENG2206 – IVAB

Assignments for Session 2 (Wu Ch’eng-en and Basho)

Collect 5-7 journal articles on either Wu Ch’eng-en’s Journey to the West or
Basho’s The Narrow Road of the Interior, and then:
1/ Put them in APA format-based order.
2/ Write a literature review of about 700 words based on reading those articles
(either the case of Wu Ch’eng-en’s Journey to the West or Basho’s The Narrow
Road of the Interior)

Note: To write a good literature review, you need to collect the articles which are
focused
on a certain theme. Here are some themes suggested for you:
- Taoism (Daoism) in Wu Ch’eng-en’s Journey to the West
- Taoism (Daoism) in Basho’s The Narrow Road of the Interior
- Buddhism in Wu Ch’eng-en’s Journey to the West
- Japanese aesthetics in Basho’s The Narrow Road of the Interior
- The influence of Wu Ch’eng-en’s Journey to the West on Vietnamese literature
and culture
etc.
A. References:
1. Ping, S. (2006). Journal of Asian Studies: Huineng, Subhuti, and
Monkey’s Religion in Xiyou Ji, 65(4), 713-740. <DOI:
10.1017/s0021911806001574>.
 2. Lidan, L. (2005). The center cannot hold: Ambiguous Narrative
Voices in Wu’s the Journey to the West and Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, 29, 63-81. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/26237103>.
3. Fan, W.-H., & Chou, H.-M. (2016). An analysis of the characters in
Xiyou Ji through the lens of Yogacara Buddhism. 2016
International Conference on Advanced Materials for Science and
Engineering (ICAMSE). <DOI:10.1109/icamse.2016.7840282>.
4. Yu, A. C. (1983). Two Literary Examples of Religious Pilgrimage:
The “Commedia” and “The Journey to the West.” History of
Religions, 22(3), 202–230. <DOI:10.1086/462922>.
5. Lind, E. (2014). Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore. Chinese
Perspectivism: Perspectivist Cosmologies in Zhuangzi and Journey
to the West, 59, 145-164. <DOI: 10.7592/FEJF2014.59.lind>.
6. Yan, L., & Wenjun, L. (2013). Theory and Practice in Language
Studies. A Comparison of the Themes of The Journey to the West
and The Pilgrim’s Progress, 3(7), 1243-1249.
<DOI:10.4304/tpls.3.7.1243-1249>

B. Literature review:
"Journey to the West" is a great work of Chinese fiction written
presumably in the XVI century by Wu Chengen that describes a
pilgrimage from China to India of a devoted Buddhist monk and his
supernatural disciples. This novel is considered one of the Four Great
Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. The novel reworks and expands
on folk tales and dramatic and operatic episodes that sprang up around
the historical journey of the Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang
(596-664 C.E.) to India to bring the original Buddhist scriptures back to
China.
The good thing about this work is using the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk
Xuanzang’s legendary pilgrimage to India as its backdrop and
incorporates folklore and social events of the time into its storyline.
During the Ming dynasty, the work was written as the vernacular novel
which is a part of Chinese folk and literary culture. Moreover, this work
has also been successful thanks to religious elements. At the time of
writing this work, China is witnessing the existence of three religions
namely Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. These three types of
teachings penetrate and influence each other, and sometimes even
merge into a unified philosophy that causes scholars and critics to
struggle to explain the symbolism of these religions through text.
Since ancient times many researchers see Xiyou Ji as a parable type of
writing containing philosophical implications. Therefore, when
mentioning the elements related to Buddhism as well as Taoism, these
are probably the two religious areas that occupy the largest and most
important positions in the Ming Dynasty novel.
“Journey to the west” demands a critical approach that has the scope to
account for both its Buddhist and Taoist elements. According to the
research of Ping Shao, this work represents the author’s skillful
manipulation of a Buddhist legend toward embodying a Taoist vision.
However, I think that Ping Shao's explanation is correct but not really
complete, when looking for more types of religion in China at that time,
Lidan Li came up with the theory of synchronization in religion. Through
his article, the author has said that a Buddhist reader who sees the
journey as simply a Buddhist mission will not do justice to multiple
narrative themes. Furthermore, given the Chinese context, she argues
that this is a synchronization of the religious issue by opposing the
opinion of Francisca C. B who wrote that the compelling reading of the
Journey is an explicitly Buddhist one. Of course, not only does Francisca
think the work is Buddhist, but there are also quite a few critics who
analyze the characters in Journey to the West from a Buddhist
perspective such as Fan, W.-H., & Chou, H. .-M. They give examples such
as “In Xiyou Ji, Tang Monk (the eighth consciousness) is the core
element. Sha Wujing (the seventh consciousness), Sun Wukong (the
sixth consciousness), Zhu Bajie (the first five consciousnesses), the white
dragon horse (the physical body), and Tang Monk (the eighth
consciousness) all work in tandem, therefore the Buddhist scriptures are
able to be acquired and Buddhahood is attained”.
Although most critics consider the emergence of Buddhism to be
prominent, there are still a few critics who consider Sun Wukong to be
the founding text of Taoism such as Lind, E., Yan, L., and Wenjun, L. The
Taoist element was introduced into the novel by the author when a
Taoist temple with unruly and sometimes very dangerous gods
appeared, hindering and causing difficulties for four people. When Wu-
Cheng-en wrote Journey to the West, he attempted to apply a lot of
Taoist reasoning, but he did not fully support, criticize, and satirize the
goblin characters who harm the country as well as the people and
obstruct the journey of four people.
Although there is still a lot of controversy about religion in Journey to
the West and most analysts give evidence, I think these theories should
be viewed from the perspective of the Chinese period at that time. It is
undeniable that Chinese literature greatly influenced the literature and
culture of Vietnam. Therefore, in this essay I will first give theories about
religion, then make a thesis for religion appearing in Journey to the
West, and finally the influences that this masterpiece has.