Chinese · -369–-286
Zhuang Zhou held a minor post in a lacquer garden in the state of Meng and, according to the one biography we have, turned down an offer to serve as prime minister of Chu on the grounds that he would rather drag his tail in the mud like a live turtle than be honoured as a shell in a temple. The book that carries his name has thirty-three chapters; scholars accept the first seven as his and the rest as the work of later hands in his manner. He wrote in parables about cooks, cicadas, cripples, butterflies and useless trees, argued that language cannot fix what things are, and made fun of Confucius by putting Daoist speeches in his mouth. He is the wittiest of the classical Chinese philosophers and the only one who is funny on purpose. Chan Buddhism, Chinese landscape painting and a great deal of later poetry come out of him.