Tao Te Ching Analysis

The Tao Te Ching doesn't jibe with any of the formal meters of Western poetry, so the best term we have for its style is probably free verse. Really, the TTC is the ultimate poetic wild card. It wa...

Normally, we wouldn't even bother to mention the author in this section. Most of the time when we're analyzing a poem, it's best to think of the speaker as a creation of the author… even if the s...

Oh, the places we'll go with the Tao Te Ching. Where are we headed, you ask? Oh, everywhere that ever was, is, or will be. Seriously, this book is all about the Tao, which is the great flow of ever...

Okay, we have something shameful to admit: we don't speak Ancient Chinese. Well, we guess it's not too shameful since most modern Chinese speakers don't either—just as the vast majority of modern...

So the first thing to know is that the Tao Te Ching is an English spelling for concepts represented by Chinese characters. Some people even say that Dao De Jing is a little closer to the way the ti...

We're going to say the main calling card of the Tao Te Ching is that it's chock-full of head-scratchers. The TTC is famously cryptic, and it hardly ever serves its meanings up for us on a silver pl...

No doubt, the Tao Te Ching isn't exactly the most straightforward thing you'll ever read. Let's be real: a big chunk of it is downright cryptic. This can be a challenge to interpret, but the key is...

Legend has it that Lao Tzu rode out of China on a water buffalo.(Source.)Some sources say that Lao Tzu actually met Confucius, that other famous Chinese philosophy guy. (Other sources say this is a...

If you're looking for an ancient Eastern text full of steaminess, try the Kama Sutra. The Tao Te Ching is too busy telling us about the power of humility and simplicity to worry about our sex lives.

The Tao Te Ching doesn't give us any specific shout-outs to other philosophical texts, but it's important to think about the fact that this book is a collection of wisdom that was passed down from...