| This dissertation intends to explore Bei Dao, Today magazine and a period of Chinese literature history they witnessed. Based on changes in Bei Dao’s works as major thread and the rise and fall of Today Magazine as sub thread, it combines personal and group creation activities together and sketches a vivid as well as torturous development route of literature revolution that was brought by a poet and a school. Evolution of language and transition of society have been the mirror image of one another for the past40years:one generation after another of poets unites under the flag of Today, from its birth to re-publication, experiencing the rise of poetry and the diaspora of words, for30years. Their insistence on independence quality of literature and ambition to reconstruct classics has never changed.The reason why I chose this topic is because the existence of Today cannot be ignored if a research is conducted on China’s modern literature. No matter the potential writing in the60s and70s, the new poetry-surge in the80s, or the Chinese literature overseas after90s, they are all linked to Today more or less. When examining the development of Today, we can track back and reveal the hard growth of modern Chinese language, which has been communicated with world literature vaguely. Especially in the current fierce globalization era, language has become identity symbol of an author in place of nationality. Extending China’s literature history to Chinese literature history becomes a tendency of diversified writing of literature history. Thus, this dissertation intends to act as a small-scale creative exploration in this area.Since Today covers numerous artworks, here I will mainly discuss about Bei Dao, who was chief editor and the soul of Today all the way, part of poems of similar style that were published on Today as well as proses, short stories and other outstanding contributions in different forms. Compared to existing research, overstepping and integrating are the creative parts of this article, which means, Bei Dao and Today will be moved and analyzed from language exploration in the70s to spirit pedigree of world literature and diaspora of world culture regardless of various limitations including time, geographical area, culture, media and so on. Finally, its literature resources will be integrated according to literature values. This dissertation is trying to get rid of the limitation that past research was usually conducted based on the view of mainland literature. I collected one hundred of editions of Today domestically and internationally, all editions of Bei Dao’s works together with relevant Chinese, English and German comments and disclosed some research and interview resources for the first time in order to break academic barriers between different countries and to construct a solid base for future analysis and multiple explanations. Comparison across borders and time periods makes the research on Bei Dao and Today more thorough in various dimensions and helps to reveal the pioneer exploration made by Today’s staff to integrate advantages of both Chinese and other foreign languages, as well as ancient and modern aesthetic classics.The collection of text resources also reveal successes in other areas that have been concealed by the light of poetry, such as prose, short story and other literature forms. Besides, systematic analysis and disposal of historical ambiguity and vague zones will give us new thoughts about existing conclusion. For example, through looking into the development of Misty Poetry, its representative works, its relation to Today’s poems, and social context in which the name "Misty Poetry" is formed, we can easily notice there is a "make the best of a bad situation" in the forming of historical concept. With compared close reading, we will find the idea-logical and artistic values of Today’s short stories are much better than those of Scar Literature and doubt whether it is reasonable for it to be the beginning of "New Era" literature. New finds are also raised on the background of Bei Dao’s poems in his early years such as "End or Beginning". The whole structure of the thesis is as the following:The introduction briefly sketches the major thread of Bei Dao and Today’s development, points out the value of the topic, draws the analysis of existing results and their limitation, and states my own research route and methods.The main body contains two parts, each having four different chapters. Part I, the Rise of Poetry (Chapter1-Chapter4) is the domestic part, while Part II, the Diaspora of Words (Chapter5-Chapter8), is the international part.Chapter1dates back the growth of Bei Dao and the pre-history of "Today-School". I start with doubtful aspects in "End or Beginning" that was first published on Today to comb through documents and history resources, in order to rebuild historical context and to point out the impact that Bei Dao’s experience in Beijing No.4Highschool when the Culture Revolution started had on his poems and the birth of Today. Meanwhile, Bei Dao’s friendship with his classmates in No.4Highschool was extended to the underground literature circle of Baiyangdian Lake poetry."Baiyangdian Lake Poetry" acted as the pre-history of "Today-School" while its representative poets were influenced by Western modern art before being sent to countryside and enjoyed a spiritual early spring in the agitation of "booklet". Educated youths including Gen Zi, Duo Duo and Mang Ke rebelled the reality and acted against the world through the creative use of language. They tried to change the language style in the Culture Revolution through the process of "demonizing" and "anti-subliming", to call for "New Language" and became known to the public by the Today magazine issued by Bei Dao, Mang Ke, and etc.Chapter2mainly explained the relationship between historical definition of "Misty Poetry" and "Today-School". The potential writing of Bei Dao, Mang Ke and other members of "Baiyangdian Lake Poetry" in the Culture Revolution became public by Today, whose "Shock Effect" lead to a fierce dispute over the "rising Poetry" through mainstream media’s enlarging. This dispute was not pure literal and gave these kinds of new poems a name, which became known to many people then:Misty Poetry. However, Misty means ambiguity itself. It concealed historical details and spiritual characteristics of the new poems, and became a big bag that covered everything:Misty is the general characteristic of modern poems. These new poems in history were a form of a language rebel against solemn and direct speech style with personal, vague characteristics. The literature form can be dated back to "Today-School" and its predecessor "Baiyangdian Lake Poetry" and extend to "Pioneer Poetry" and "New Generation Poetry". Its aesthetic characteristics and art style became more luxuriant and developed in multiple dimensions in the80s.Chapter3includes comments on success of Today in the area of short story. Compared to the Scar Literature at the same time, the short stories on Today were precocious in both spirit and art. They called for "the ego", rebelled against dictator, was brave to bear angst and desperation, re-found personal values and dignity and made attempts in language and literature forms. For example, Bei Dao revealed the natural characteristic of human and social paradox through conflicts, Wang Zhi disclosed the delicate relationships between human and the world with detailed psychoanalysis, while Shi Tiesheng gave humanistic care back to the nature of life in the name of love. However, if we talk about the philosophy root, the short stories on Today were deeply influenced by Existentialism and faced absurdness of reality, loneliness of life and life’s pains bravely but never flattered. It was the first step for China’s literature to return to people’s daily life from santur-ary.Chapter4discusses Bei Dao’s transition in literature started by Today. Comments were made on Bei Dao’s major poems written from1979to1986through close reading and compared close reading. Referring to his personal experience and social activity in the same period, I sketch the evolution of his art works and point out that love poem was his major form from1979to1980, which was ignored by many. After the work of "Borders"(1980), his style became more moderate in modern poems. His immersion in language itself and awareness in writing took control of evolution of Bei Dao’s poems’style. Bei Dao was a translator as well as a poet. He improved his skill in modern poetry with the help of translation and enlarged the field of Chinese expression through translation forms in the early years. In comparing Baudelaire’s poems translated by Chen Jingrong, Lorca’s by Dai Wangshu, Paz’s by Ye Weilian, Transtromer’s by Bei Dao and the overlapping area between Transtromer’s poems and Bei Dao’s, we will discuss in the context of modern literature, translated literature’s impact on evolution of language, integrity of tradition and modern world and adjusting the complicated conflict between nationality and the world.Then we will go to the next part, the Diaspora of Words.Chapter5reviews the historical background of the Diaspora Literature in the world, and points out that Diaspora in20th century was a language activity. The diaspora of a poet means the diaspora of words, whose field is not limited to foreign countries. Due to the same characteristic of "Pioneer Poetry","Misty Poetry" and "After-misty Poetry" who belonged to different groups in the80s reached the same destination in the late80s. In1990, Today was reissued overseas and became the publication field for the merged "Pioneer Poetry". Two generations both regarded language as ultimate reality with similar writing style, which was also in accordance with inherent evolution logical of Chinese literature revolution. Additionally, the context of diaspora provided exile poets a kind of dual-views to review Chinese and Western poems and the capability of contrapuntal thinking. In comparison of cultural differences, the poets became aware that they should take advantages of diverse cultures in various countries and inherit tradition as well.Chapter6briefly discusses a debate, which was aroused by Stephen Owen’s book review on Bei Dao’s poems, on the nationality and the internationality of new poems in world’s Chinese literature circle. It tracks the vertical links between Bei Dao’s together with the Today-School’s new poems writing and the traditional poetry. Especially when it came to the90s, the physical and spiritual diaspora gave them a chance to recognize and think about the tradition again, to get rid of negative limitations of reality factors and to start from the edge to find the cultural memories of their own tradition. Through the close reading of the poems written in the90s by Bei Dao, we can find links between his whims and the Equality of things by Zhuang Zi.Chapter7discusses Bei Dao’s contribution in the field of prose. His proses can be classified into3categories:journals during trips, memories in early years, comments and remarks from biography and academic discussion. Among them, the first category covers the most sub-groups, including "People in the Earth","Memories during a Drift"," Little Pleasures of Life" and "Embarrassing Moments on a Trip". It is not difficult to see that the diaspora of life and the metaphysical diaspora in Bei Dao’s works in the90s connected with each other and joined into the tradition of diaspora aesthetic in world literature of20th century. His proses were his footprints across the world on paper and closely related to his physical travelling. Also, his trips provided clues for us to interpret his poems. Drift and Diaspora, Un-Revolutionary Words, and World Poetry consist of Bei Dao’s art of prose.Chapter8goes back to Today, to introduce the huge wide and deep impact this pioneer magazine in Chinese literature across borders had on re-writing of China’s literature history. For example, Today took discontinued Re-written Literature History in the mainland and carried on with it. It started historical aspect on the horizon of literature, stuck to it for as long as10years and finally returned to mainland for publication. In a sense, The Herald with a Lantern edited by Old Words of Today contributed to China’s literature history in20th century more than simple supplement and completion of original documents but a change in view’s angle and open an untraveled route in historical narration. It forced us to abandon our existing hype-thesis and premise. The Seventies intends to face the past based on experience and challenge from historical memories, in order to consider changes taken place in human, the definition of human and origin as well as direction of culture evolution. The Memories in A Storm, collection of personal experiences about a special history period from various views and points of junior and senior graduates of1966-1968in Beijing No.4Highschool. Now, the End reaches the Beginning and the main body is finished.In the conclusion we review our views of literature history and literal spirits and raise another possibility of literature history’s writing. If past historical narration was closely related to authority’s will, now we connect the destiny of an author, a magazine, to a period of literature history he had traveled and viewed. We open a window of surprise to view the scenery of humanity and provide supplement for missing personalization and vivid details in tradition literature history and make the spirit of literature reach its destination of a capitalized HUMAN. |
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