Reading/Questions for Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, Poems 1-20, (pp.1-25)

NOTE: Be sure to watch the video first (the post below) before reading these poems. It might help! 

For next week, read through the first twenty poems in the Tao te Ching slowly...don't read them the way you would a novel or short story. In fact, I care less that you read them all then you read a few of them carefully and more than once. Remember to think about metaphors and how a metaphor can transform a common experience into something unique and complex--and help you experience it from the poet's point of view.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Discuss an important metaphor in one of the poems: what do you think this metaphor is trying to compare--what experience/idea to what experience/idea? Why is this useful? For example, Poem XII (12) says, "the sage is/For the belly/Not for the eye." What does it mean that the sage/teacher is meant to be "eaten" and not "seen"? 

Q2: Many of these poems play with the idea of paradox--two ideas that would normally cancel each other out (like "burning ice" or "kind cruelty"). Discuss one such paradox and why this paradox is not only possible, but enlightening to consider. For example, "use will never drain it." How is this possible?

Q3: Many of these poems can seem repetitive, using the same ideas and even the same language from one to another. Why do you think this is? Does one poem build on the other? Or do they represent different voices, each one offering slight variations on the same theme or idea?

Q4: Discuss a poem or passage that seems hopelessly confusing or impossible to 'translate.' Why is this? What language, metaphor, or paradox seems too dense to penetrate? Do you have any guesses or ideas?