ABSTRACT
Holding a cross-cultural dialogue between Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi so far looks very promising. But a percipient reader may turn to the very basics of this interpretative enterprise and question its primary conditions: is it even possible to start such a dialogue? Can the Zhuangzi, a syncretist text dating from the fourth century BCE and fraught with uncertainties in meaning in every passage, be translated in a way that makes sense in the context of a comparison with two writers who are different in just about every aspect (language, culture, history...)? What does it take to translate different intellectual and cultural experiences into each other? And if we can, is it desirable to do so? Although the comparative method seems to offer a tempting perspective onto wider and more exotic horizons, on what grounds is it anchored? Can we simply pluck writers and texts from any context and ‘do’ comparative literature?
