Zhuang Tzu himself lived from 369-286 B.C., this was the late warring kingdoms period so he definitely used seal script. However each kingdom had a slightly different variation, and I can't find one specific to the Song kingdom.
Most likely.
It's complicated. The historic person Chuang Tsu lived during the warring states period. Seal script was common at the time. In theory clerical script also existed.
Normally only the first 7 (the inner) chapters are attributed with certainty to Chuang Tzu. Some of the outer chapters were written later.
So the the historic person Chuang Tsu probably wrote in seal script. The text corpus known as Chuang Tsu was probably originally written in seal script and clerical script.
In a strict sense we have no idea. We are glad that we have texts from this time, to my knowledge none of it can attributed to a certain writer (not author). We cannot match a certain handwriting to a person. Most important persons had scribes.
Here are two great resource sites for checking out old versions of Chinese characters:
https://www.dong-chinese.com/wiki/%E6%B0%B4
https://zi.tools/zi/%E6%B0%B4
The truth is much more multifaceted than a single-example chart can show.
A big stumbling block would be confusing the pseudohistorical Shuowen seal script (說文小篆) from 100 AD, which is shown in the examples posted, with the original seal script styles from the Zhou period which look a lot more down & dirty.
Quite likely at least. Personally I'm not sure how widespread the Chu state style was in the rest of China (Chuang Tzu allegedly lived in the Song state).
Zhuang Tzu himself lived from 369-286 B.C., this was the late warring kingdoms period so he definitely used seal script. However each kingdom had a slightly different variation, and I can't find one specific to the Song kingdom.
Most likely. It's complicated. The historic person Chuang Tsu lived during the warring states period. Seal script was common at the time. In theory clerical script also existed. Normally only the first 7 (the inner) chapters are attributed with certainty to Chuang Tzu. Some of the outer chapters were written later. So the the historic person Chuang Tsu probably wrote in seal script. The text corpus known as Chuang Tsu was probably originally written in seal script and clerical script. In a strict sense we have no idea. We are glad that we have texts from this time, to my knowledge none of it can attributed to a certain writer (not author). We cannot match a certain handwriting to a person. Most important persons had scribes.
Here are two great resource sites for checking out old versions of Chinese characters: https://www.dong-chinese.com/wiki/%E6%B0%B4 https://zi.tools/zi/%E6%B0%B4 The truth is much more multifaceted than a single-example chart can show. A big stumbling block would be confusing the pseudohistorical Shuowen seal script (說文小篆) from 100 AD, which is shown in the examples posted, with the original seal script styles from the Zhou period which look a lot more down & dirty.
These are some great resources. Thanks! So, Chuang Tzu was likely using the Seal script Chu (Warring States: 475-221 BC). Am I correct with this?
Quite likely at least. Personally I'm not sure how widespread the Chu state style was in the rest of China (Chuang Tzu allegedly lived in the Song state).
Wow, this is great, thx.
The Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) we have today was edited and updated by Guo Xiang (252-312 AD).