人生識字憂患始 : 中國讀書人の憂愁

Abstract

When one learns reading and writing, the sorrow of life begins ....this is the first line of Su Shi (蘇軾) 's poem titled "The Suimu Tang of Shi Cang-shu" (｢石蒼舒醉墨堂｣). This poem teases his friend Shi Cangshu who is an expert calligrapher of the grassy style (caoshu) by seeming to assert that caoshu is useless while in fact subtlely praising Shi's art. Though Su Shi does not continue the argument that literacy begets sorrow, his opening line leads us to the problem of the sorrow of being literate. A Shidafu is a member of the privileged class who could in turn become a government official by being literate. During the Six Dynasties and the first half of the Tang period, men were born to be Shidafu, therefore they were not overly conscious of belonging to this class. In the mid-Tang, a man became a Shidafu through his own effort and ability. In these years Han Yu (韓愈) and Bai Ju-yi (白居易) both raised themselves up to join this elite and found contentment and happiness by being literate. In the Song period we can find some people who expressed sorrow over being literate. Lu You (陸游) in his verse often laments being literate and envies the lives of illiterate people. He believed they lived like the ancient people Laozi depicted. This suggests that as the Chinese bureaucracy matured scholar-officials began to notice their unhappiness. They came to believe that the ideal life for a human being was realized by illiterate people who lived in nature without any artifices. Thus we can see the soundness of spirit of the Chinese literati who question their own status in the social system and also ponder the meaning of a literature which can allow them to express thoughts not restrained by that same system.