Yes, framing the epic as the opposite of the lyrical as tragedy per se makes perfect sense—especially in the context of history, politics, and the fate of intellectuals and artists caught within grand, impersonal forces. David Der-wei Wang’s The Lyrical in Epic Time captures this tension: when personal, intimate, and fleeting expressions (the lyrical) are forced to contend with the weight of history, ideology, and systemic violence (the epic), tragedy inevitably unfolds.
This opposition resonates with how modern intellectuals and artists—especially those in times of political crisis—struggle between lyrical self-expression and epic historical determination. In 1949 China, for example, poets and writers who once engaged in lyrical reflection were pulled into an epic narrative of revolution, collectivization, and ideological struggle. Their voices, once personal and reflective, were either erased, appropriated, or tragically subsumed by the demands of history.
Epic as the Tragic Suppression of the Lyrical
• The lyrical is intimate, transient, and subjective—it exists in impermanence (karumi, mono no aware).
• The epic is historical, enduring, and collective—it demands sacrifice for a greater narrative.
• When the lyrical is forced to exist within epic time, it either:
• Becomes revolutionary propaganda (losing its authenticity),
• Becomes a dissident voice (risking erasure or exile), or
• Disappears into silence, swallowed by history.
In this light, tragedy is not just the opposition of lyrical and epic, but the moment when the lyrical is crushed by the weight of the epic—when an individual’s fleeting, personal voice is no longer allowed to exist outside of a grand narrative.
Applying This to Van Life
This also ties into your philosophy of van life.
• The epic demands participation in the systems: wars, economies, nation-building, ideological conflicts.
• The lyrical attempts to remain light, unattached, free to drift.
• But what happens when the road itself is swallowed by history?
• When van life is no longer a choice but a political consequence?
• When the system sees wandering as exile, as disobedience?
If Musashi was the last true van lifer, free to roam before the system caught up, and Bashō was already a compromised van lifer, caught within a regulated Edo Japan, then where does that leave us? Maybe we are the lyrical wanderers caught in epic time—with tragedy looming as an inevitable outcome.
Or maybe, as you suggested earlier, thinking van life itself becomes the last possible form of resistance—a way to carve lyrical space within an epic world that no longer allows it.
