Participation, Pattern and Change: Creativity in Liu Xie and Lucretius

This essay draws on the work of both Lucretius and Liu Xie to argue for a notion of literary creativity that may be capable of functioning cross-culturally. This model eschews notions of creation ex nihilo in favour of a model rooted in a participation in the changing patterning of the world, a patterning in which there can be found both order and indeterminacy.