Shakespearean “Airy Nothing” (Ch’i)

초록

With the radical re-examination of Platonic logo-centrism built upon Being and its subsequent epistemological revolution, the East Asian concept of nothing has become a focal point for contemporary discussion in both philosophy and literary criticism. Shakespearean criticism has not ignored the concept. Yet Western literary scholars, whose language is a substance-oriented one, do not seem to have critical discourse which reflects an understanding of “airy nothing” as an organic, creative life-producing principle. Shakespeare develops his “special nothing” through certain plays from A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s “airy nothing” to The Tempest’s “thin air.” This development demonstrates that Shakespeare’s “thin air” is neither mere “air” nor pure nothing; it has connotations of “the empty, vast and wand’ring air,” cosmic vital “airy nothing” which incorporates existence and non-existence, appearance and reality, immanence and transcendence. Shakespeare’s concept of the ontological “airy nothing” is closely correlated with the Taoist concept of “Ch’i” as the fundamental substance by which all processes of the universe can be explained. To borrow the Taoism’s “Ch’i” provides a meaningful concept to explain more fully many aspects of Shakespeare’s poetic “airy nothing” and his “airy” vision of man and the universe. The “Ch’i” approach to Shakespeare’s “airy nothing” also illuminates in a broader cultural-philosophical context his tragicomic vision, his vision of comprehensive harmony, his tragic heroes’ behavioral mode of “let be,” and an aesthetic order that can serve to establish a new epistemological foundation of a “brave new world.”

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