陶淵明的生死世界

Tao Yuan-Ming's World of Life and Death

本文旨在探究一生以任真自得、復返自然為生命本質的陶淵明，如何以詩思開展生死世界。文分四個主要段落：第一部分探討陶淵明如何承繼漢晉以來普遍的歎逝風潮，進而承擔起面對死亡的怖懼；第二部分析論〈挽歌〉與〈祭文〉如何從身體感與人倫性體現生死的界限；第三部分透過其〈形影神〉的內容結構揭示其與佛教生死觀的論辯；第四部分則在究析陶淵明如何以儒家倫理的責任、道家氣化的宇宙觀，融匯出委運任化與識運知命的生死智慧。綜言之，透過陶淵明與當代玄學思辯的對話闊係、與傳統生死觀的離合分判，本文期望以詩歌史上的生死抒詠為背景，突顯陶淵明詩文中獨特的生死世界，彰明其在儒道傳統中所開出的新局。

This paper explores how Tao Yuan Ming, a poet whose existential conviction is based on the ideas of truthfulness, self-contentment, and return to nature, represents life and death in his poetry. The first section of the paper delineates the way in which Tao, in the cultural milieu of lamenting mortality prevalent in the Han and Jin dynasties, developed equanimity in the face of death. Through an analysis of his elegies and funeral orations, the second part deals with how Tao's sense of body and views on ethics embody the borderline between life and death. Through a structural analysis of his poem 'Flesh, Shadow, and Spirit,' the third section lays out his dialogue with the Buddhist views of life and death. The final section demonstrates how Tao integrates Confucian ethical obligations with the Taoist cosmology of energy transformation, creates an existential position of 'attending to destiny and following the cosmic transformation,' and develops a wisdom of life and death based on an understanding and recognition of the destiny. Tao's view of life and death - unique in the history of Chinese poetry - and the conceptual innovations he made to the Confucian and Taoist traditions are highlighted through our examination of the dialogues between him and his fellow metaphysicians.