Qian Zhongshu’s continuation and expansion of Lessing’s <i>Laokoon</i>

Through a close comparative reading of Lessing’s Laokoon (1766) with two essays by Qian Zhongshu, entitled ‘Chinese Poetry and Chinese Painting’ (1940/1979/1985) and ‘On Reading Laokoon’ (1962/1985), this article produces a new understanding of Qian’s interpretation and, more importantly, expansion of the key aesthetic and philological concepts that Lessing raises in Laokoon. One of Lessing’s crucial motives for writing Laokoon was to challenge the endorsement of the superiority of painting over poetry by the majority of intellectuals during his time and to instead place both art forms on an equal footing. Qian Zhongshu, meanwhile, began using Laokoon as an analytical tool and then embarked on an aesthetic and philological endeavour to show that Western and Chinese literature were of equal value.