absurdity, xiii, xvii, 29–30, 52, 93, 104–105, 108, 146–158, 170, 189, 268, 292

Atwood, Margaret, 32

Beckett, Samuel, 147–148, 170

Berdyaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, 40, 150–151

Bing Xin, 5

Buck, Pearl, 58

Buddhism, 31, 41, 47, 55, 57, 80, 92, 97, 109, 113, 213, 224, 268–269, 285, 292–293, 296

Byron, George Gordon, 111, 118, 173, 262

Camus, Albert, 3, 110, 147–148, 277–278

The Stranger,, 60, 65, 155

Cervantes, Miguel de, xi, 106

Christianity, 55, 57, 112, 173

Classic of Mountains and Seas,, 5, 7–8, 13, 35, 107, 139, 174

Confucianism, 21, 27, 41, 45, 57, 93, 106, 115, 181, 206, 208–210, 215, 233, 254–255, 292–296

Confucius, 115, 130, 171, 208, 254, 277, 293

Dante, Alighieri, xi, xvi, 4–5, 7, 34, 105, 107, 147

Diamond Sutra,, 80–81, 127, 151, 264, 273, 289

Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich, 7, 11, 79, 278

Du Fu, 88, 130, 138, 240

Faulkner, William, 3

Sound and Fury,, 69, 79

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott, 18

Freud, Sigmund, 107, 246

Gao Xingjian, 261

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 4, 72, 107, 147, 159

Faust,, 18

The Sorrows of Werther,, 4, 18, 65, 84

Grass, Gunter, 69

Guo Moruo, 200, 241

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 51, 72, 182–184

Heidegger, Martin, xxi, 84–85, 160, 277–278

Holderlin, Johann Christian Friedrich, 14, 72, 83, 160, 279, 282

Homer, 4–7, 105–106, 138, 159–160, 174–175

Hu Shi, xxii, 199–201

Huineng, 5, 20, 94, 97, 113, 125, 128, 144, 261, 269, 285, 289

Investiture of the Gods,, 8, 40, 104

Ionesco, Eugéne, 97, 147–148