Truyện Kiều của Nguyễn Du và Thơ Nôm của Hồ Xuân Hương: Từ tiếp cận đối thoại liên văn hóa

Abstract

Nguyen Du’s Tale of Kieu and Ho Xuan Huong’s Nom Poetry are famous works in the traditional Vietnamese literary heritage. Therefore, these works have been approached and explored by Vietnamese and foreign scholars from different perspectives. In this paper, from the perspectives of intercultural dialogues proposed by Robert Redfield (1956) and by Vincent J.H. Houben (2021, 2024), the author attempts to bring new approaches and new ways of interpreting to these works. Regarding Tale of Kieu, the author points out that the intercultural dialogues in the work are essentially just horizontal intercultural dialogues of the upper classes in society (the elites) at that time, with absolutely no participation from the ordinary people. Moreover, those intercultural dialogues took place in paradigms and dimensions of Confucianism, Buddhism and of “natural law” theory. When placing those three types of dialogues in a topochrone-style system, three concepts, three core values will reveal: humanity, karma, and destiny. That is the highest magical trinity of the Tale of Kieu. Regarding Ho Xuan Huong’s Nom Poetry, the author argues that the most significant dialogue is the intercultural dialogue between “great traditions” and “little traditions”, reflecting the social conflicts of that time. But it is also an intercultural dialogue between the female and male in the context of a typical patriarchal Confucian society. It is also a dialogue between Vietnamese women to themselves, or with their own status and their own destiny about their aspiration for emancipation.