THE INSEPARABLE STRUCTURE IN EAST ASIAN CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND INTRATEXTUAL INTERMEDIALITY: THE CASE OF LIU CIXIN’S THE THREE-BODY TRILOGY

Abstract

The remarkable rise of East Asian literature in the first decades of the twenty-first century has often been attributed to the support of digital media. This article, however, argues that the inseparable structure embedded in East Asian cultural traditions constitutes an internal aesthetic condition and a mode of transcending representational boundaries that facilitates the formation of intratextual intermediality, thereby opening up diverse possibilities for connection with other media and art forms. Focusing on Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Trilogy and drawing on Werner Wolf’s theory of intermediality, the article examines three representative manifestations of the inseparable structure: Virtual–Real, which destabilizes the boundary between reality and simulation; Literature–History–Philosophy–Science, which transcends boundaries between knowledge domains and genres; and Idea–Image, which bridges the boundary between language and visual representation. The analysis demonstrates that inseparability is not merely a structural feature of the work but also provides an aesthetic foundation for the deployment of intratextual intermediality. Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Trilogy thus invites further reflection on the transformative potential and evolving trajectories of East Asian literature in the context of twenty-first-century digital technology.