Intellectual Poetics And Modern Chinese Poetry

This dissertation makes an analysis of modern Chinese poetry based on the concept of intellectuality. Intellectuality is an important aesthetic spirit that became eminent in the course of modern Chinese poetry development. Its budding, rise, growth and maturing are closely related with the influence of western intellectual poetics. The chief advocators of Western intellectual poetics were T.S Eliot and I. A. Richards who put forward a series of theoretical views and poetic ideas which cast important influences on the 20th century criticism of poetry and as well as provide guidance to the creation of poetry. From the late 19th century to the 20th century Eliot and W. H. Auden, representatives of British and American modernist poets, as well as P. Valery and R. M. Rilke, representatives of the late symbolist poets were moving in the direction of intellectuality in their writing. Taking both the critical theory and practice of Western poetry as background and frame of reference, this dissertation aims at taking a survey of the intellectual spirit in modern Chinese poetry. Intellectual poetry began to bud in the 1920s, grew and flourished in the 1930s through the poetical experiments and efforts of Bian Zhilin, Fei Ming and Jin Kemu. Among their works, those by Bian Zhilin and Fei Ming had the richest coloring of intellectuality. These works opened up a new aesthetic direction for modern Chinese poetic art. In the 1940s, with the efforts of the group of poets in Southwest Associated University, the intellectual spirit in the modern Chinese poetry became matured and intellectuality became an important indicator of modernization of modern Chinese poetry. Of these poets, Feng Zhi and Mu Dan made by far the most outstanding achievements. This thesis makes a focused study of two groups of poets (the group of intellectual poets of the 1930s and the group of poets at Southwest Associated University in the 1940s) and four major poets (Bian Zhilin, Fei Ming, Fei Ming, Feng Zhi and Mu Dan), by which to trace and discover the history and patterns of development intellectually in modern Chinese poetry.The first Chapter discusses the intellectual thought in modern Western poetics.The first to treat intellectuality as a concept of poetics was S. T. Coleridge. When he discoursed on imagination in his critical work Biographia literaria, he used the word "intellect" to define imagination, regarding it as an ability or power to bring about equilibrium between opposing and incongruous qualities. This idea became the fountainhead of intellectual poetics. Eliot and Richards inherited the ideas of Coleridge and put forward some new principles and propositions and their critical theories constituted the main body of Western intellectual poetics. The most prominent theories of Eliot were his ideas of "impersonalization" and his views of "the metaphysical poet" in his important essays: Tradition and Individual, Hamlet, The Metaphysical Poets, Andrew Marvell, etc. In his important critical works such as Principle of Literary Criticism, Science and Poetry, Practical Criticism, Richards advocated scientific, objective and analytic criticism. He thought that a poem is the equilibrium between organized experience and impulse. He also brought forward two important terms "inclusive poetry" and "exclusive poetry." He analyzed the differences between the scientific use of language and the emotional use of it, which laid the foundation for his contextual theory and textual analysis. And these constituted the intellectual thinking in modern Western poetics.The second chapter will deal with the process of the reception and spread of western intellectual poetics in China. Without the influence of western intellectual poetics, there is no development of modern Chinese poetry in its intellectual aspect. Based on the analysis of the historical development, this part will discuss how T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards' poetries and thoughts came into the field of Chinese new poetry and brought along great impact. The process of the reception of Eliot in China can be divided into two different periods: from the 1920s to the middle 1930s and from the late 1930s to the middle 1940s. As to the relationship between Richards and China, the discuss will focus on three aspects: one is on his experience in China, including his study on Chinese traditional culture, the second is on the translation and introduction of his writings and views, and the third is on the impact of his thought to Chinese criticism in 1930s and 1940s.The third chapter will deal with the intellectual character of modern Chinesepoetry and the progress of intellectual theory in the criticism of modem Chinese poetry. The exemplarily exhibition of the intellectual character in modem Chinese poetry, then, are as follow: the theoretical inclination in initial pai-hua poetry, the metaphysical character in "Little Poems", and the pursuit of the priority of reason over emotion in the late period of the Crescent Moon Society, the achievements of which established the foundation of the development of the intellectual poetry. With the spread and prevalence of western intellectual poetics and the upspring and progress of the intellectual character in the poetic writing practice of modem poets, Chinese poetic criticism has their own theoretical demands and claims, among which, for example, are Ye Gongchao's "from image to judgment", Jin Kemu's "new wisdom poem", Mu Dan's "new lyric", Yuan kejia's "the modernization of new poetry", and so on. Specially, Yuan Kejia's view has included a relatively systematical theoretical framework. In fact, his achievement means the maturity of Chinese own intellectual theory in 1940s.The fourth chapter, based on the analysis of Bian Zhilin and Fei Ming, emphatically treats of the practice of "the intellectual poets group" in 1920s. Then, in a special context, some poets changed their poetic modes of traditional sensitive lyric and began to pursuit "beauty of intelligence". And then, the distinction between the sensitive poets group and the intellectual one was appear. For example, this two groups different to each other in the modes of symbolism and the using of images. Among the later group, the achievements of Bian Zhilin and Fei Ming were more outstanding. So this part explains the intellectual character in Bian's writing in terms of the internal spirit and the external strategy respectively. On the one hand, based on the central images of "mirror" and "water", this part discusses the internal spirit and complex cultural context in Bian's poems; on the other hand, according to the narrative person and structure, this part discourses on his new lyrical styles such as dramatization and novelization. The analysis on Fei Ming is to uncover the close relation between his writing and cultural tradition. Through interpreting his poetics claim in his famous text on new poetry and investigating his writing practice in 1930s, this part expounds clearly to us that Fei Ming's poetry has profound Chinese classical resource. And, forexample, he is influenced very much by Wen Tingjun and Li Shangyin, two famous classical poets in the late Tang Dynasty.The fifth chapter, focusing on Feng Zhi and Mu Dan, analyzes the intellectual writing of the poets from Southwest Associated University in 1940s. There are two great characters in their intellectual writing: one is the combination of personal experience and historical experience, the other is the highly synthesis of "reality, symbol, metaphysics". Feng zhi, as well as Mu Dan, is the most excellent one among those poets. His Collection of sonnets completed in 1940s is really a poetic philosophy. Its philosophical spirit is embodied on two points: one is the concern with common life; the other is the reflection on the natural things. According to these two aspects, this part concludes poet's views on life and the nature involved in the text. On the other hand, Mu Dan's writing in 1940s had special intellectual style, as can be seen in the following three arguments: the mode of lyric of "thinking through body", the spiritual struggle pattern of "siege—break-through", and the metaphysical interpretation of the complex experience of love.