This article demonstrates how Kafka and Hauge engage with Laozi's paradoxes, suggesting deep connections to modernism and Daoist philosophy.
Abstract “Transreading” incorporates lento reading, poetic translation, cultural hermeneutics, and creative writing. The interplay of these activities enables the transreader to delve deeper into details and thereby integrate new wholes at a higher level. Franz Kafka and Olav H. Hauge are 20th-century European transreaders of Chinese antiquity. This article transreads how they each use Laozi’s paradoxes to launch an adventurous journey. It uncovers Daoist resonances with pre-Socratic philosophy, biblical mythology, medieval mysticism, the German Bildungsroman, and Nordic modernism.
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Huiwen Zhang (2025) studied this question.
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