JOURNAL ARTICLE

Journeying to the West in The Tale of Kiều: Landscape, Gardens, and Directional Impulse in Vietnam's National Epic.

  • Published In: Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2025, v. 58, n. 3. P. 317 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Spencer, Susan; Dinh, Anh 3 of 3

Abstract

Nguyễn Du's poem Truyện Kiều redefines two Chinese traditions grafted, not entirely successfully, onto Vietnamese society: Confucianist collective values, and Buddhist longing for individual freedom from earthly hindrances. In this poem, references to the east are generally associated with the family and communal values of Confucianism; the west indicates spiritual or individual impulse. For Nguyễn Du, a practicing Buddhist and accomplished Confucian scholar, neither is fully satisfactory. His heroine, Kiều, triumphs not through abandoning conventions regarding religion and gender, but through a reorientation that accommodates seemingly opposite value systems so successfully the poem has been hailed as Vietnam's national epic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Eighteenth-Century Studies. 2025/04, Vol. 58, Issue 3, p317
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Literature and Writing
  • Publication Date:2025
  • ISSN:0013-2586
  • DOI:10.1353/ecs.2024.a958726
  • Accession Number:185689604
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