Neo-Confucianism And Poetry Of The Radical Period: Study Of Wu Fangji

Undoubtedly,Wu Fangji(1896-1932)was living in a time full of the most turbulently changes,during which the Confucian value system collapsed and the classical Chinese,as a written language,was replaced by writings in vernacular and the new culture and new-vernacular literature was born,with the linear view of history gradually dominating the time consciousness of the Chinese.As a Neo-Confucianist,Wu Fangji firmly believes that the traditional culture and the classical poetry can't be separated from “modernism”,while trying to find certain balance between “universality” and “diversity” and easy the hostility and contrasting feelings of the new culture and new-vernacular culture against the tradition.Wu appears to be both “innovative” and “conservative” in his cultural selection and poetic practice because of the deep influence of the contradiction between the Confucian ideas and the tide of the times.This paper focuses on Wu Fangji's Confucianism thoughts and poetic thinking while inspecting the historical representation and the encounter with the time of the modern form of Confucianism.With the systematic analysis of the new style of poetry,“White Cottage Poems”,the function of Confucian ideas in the construction of psychological procedure of individual literature and the intervention of Confucian values against the modern poetic thoughts.On this basis,the paper further discusses the significance of poetic creation in the context of “New Culture Movement” as well as the status and values in the development history of the new poetry with the influence of Confucianism.The paper is made up of eight chapters.In Chapter 1,the origin of the topic selection is explained,the research status is groomed and commented in an academic way,the research value and significance of the topic is raised while outlining the research goals,thoughts and approaches.Chapter 2 is an interpretation of Wu Fangji's life text in which the complexity and contradiction of his literary character are analyzed.Wu Fangji's was doomed to be an “onlooker” and “marginal figure” of the time owning to his life selection,which serves as the reason why he inserted himself in the chain of the tradition in the wild whirlwind in a great time.Full of numerous paradoxes,his life was unconventionally settled in a tight corner while following strict moralism with poetic sensitivity and deep love.The roaring flame of life,fervent but brief,endowed him with a harmonious and unified personality.Living in the age of enlightenment,he was sentimentally attached to and obstinately observed the Confucian ideas.By analyzing his life text,we can touch the exciting pulse of Wu's Neo-Confucianism in a misplaced and embarrassing time;feel the exuded grief and bitterness in the turbulent days while experiencing the bewilderment and obsession of a literary conservative.In Chapter 3 the image of Wu Fangji as a Neo-Confucianist who maintained his doctrine is presented and his “inner sage” complex and moral ambition “returning to rites” are discussed.Since the “May 4th Movement”,the “New Culture Movement” in which “science” and “democracy” were advocated had opened a new era of ideological enlightenment in China,which radically denied the traditional culture,the Confucianism in particular,in the historical context emphasizing on criticizing and transforming Chinese culture.In that case,the Confucian ideology tended to collapse while maintaining its vitality in influencing the reestablishment of Chinese modern spirit in a special form of “wondering ghost”.With the libratory cultural spirit jumping in his heart after the “May 4th Movement” deep inside,Wu actively continued the dissipating Confucian spirit while explicating and sublating the philosophy of goodness of human nature and the feudal code of ethics of Confucianists with the color of the time.Taking Wu's acceptance of Neo-Confucianism as entry point,Wu's identity of a “Confucianist” unknown to others is restored in the discussion of the origin and vein of his poetic thought while making inquiries on the value of Confucianism in modern Chinese thinking pedigree.Chapter 4 discusses how Wu Fangji regarded and evaluated “New Cultural Movement” in the point of view of Confucianists,and how he explained his cultural outlook and literature view in the vein of Confucianism and “new humanism” while outlining the historical origin of Wu Fangji's “cultural conservatism”,how the western humanistic thought of “Plato-Babbitt” vein was inserted in the texture of Confucian discourses to demonstrate the intrinsic flexibility and tenacious vitality of Confucianism.Different to the cutting-edge propositions popular in “Literary Revolution”,Wu dealt with the relationship between “morality” and “emotion” in a broad visual angle,attempting to literarily break the supremacy of the new literature with the “personal anarchism”.Was Wu's cultural monologue a lonely prophesy or an overestimation of an insensible conservative in the theater of the “New Cultural Movement”? This chapter will give the answer with a historical dimension in analyzing the mental implication and cultural pursuit of Wu Fangji as a “cultural aphasia”.Chapter 5 is about how Wu Fangji constructed and shaped his poetic thought with Confucianism discourse,based on which the language problems and cultural meanings of the new poetry are surveyed.Wu's poetic thought is,on the one hand,inheritance of the Confucian tradition of The Great Preface and The Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons,and on the other hand,derivation of certain ideas of On Canglang Poetry and Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind,showing that literature is expression of the supreme good of life itself and the meaning of poetry lies in affirming the promising property and transcendence over the profane life of human nature.In this chapter,how Wu Fangji as a modern Confucianist took example from and utilized the classics and the western poetic resources is discussed with the aim of seeking the approaches in which the alien and different cultures were transformed and absorbed by modern new Confucianists.In the confrontation between the “Critical Review school” represented by Wu Fangji and new literary figures over the new poetry,we can find the secret meditation and ulterior bailment behind the debate on ancient and modern Chinese and China and the west.Wu's poetics looks upon the linguistic and stylistic conversion and renewal in the point of view of cultural nationalism with the original intention of maintaining the extraordinary cultural values and aesthetic emotion of Chinese poetry.For this purpose,Wu took poetic practice in “transforming the European and the ancient” while maintaining and accessing the tradition and made exploration and creation in the possible approaches of the new poetry in the point of view of Confucian poetry.The poetic quest in poetic reform of Wu Fangji is a representation of the endeavor of the cultural conservatives and a noticeable part in the history of modern Chinese poetry.In Chapter 6,the property of the “White Cottage Poems” created by Wu Fangji is re-examined in the pedigree of the poetic revolution.The “White Cottage Poems”,by taking example from the folk and oral features and the realistic form of the Yuefu Poems,improved the classical style of poems,endowing the orality of poetry with complicated strain and unique features.This chapter is a cultural description and poetic analysis of the improvement process of Wu Fangji's poems in the point of view of the ferment,feature and impact of the era of the “White Cottage Poems”.Chapter 7 focuses on the reason why Wu Fangji made a turn in his poems in his late life while discussing the limit and possibility of the classical poetry revolution.The idea of his poetic revolution was to expand the expressive space of Chinese poetry based on the condition of maintaining the basic system of the classic poetry,which was partly completed in the poetic practice of his “White Cottage Poems”,which,however,never relieved the tight restriction of the classical form or create a modern new style of poetry.Although he had realized where the limit of his poetic revolution lay,he could never break the poetic model of “new wine in an old bottle” in his “White Cottage Poems” but return to the familiar and self-satisfied aesthetic world of the classical poetry,toward which the vainness and frustration of the poetic revolution was contrasted with the absolute sincerity.However,Wu's return to the classical didn't mean that the “White Cottage Poems” had lost its significance as a new style,whose existence showed a possibility: the cultural meaning and formal structure of the classical poetry could be perfectly accommodated in the language space of the vernacular poetry.Chapter 8 is the conclusion.In the atmosphere of a violently-changing time,Wu Fangji made two “returns” one after another: the return to Neo-Confucianism,fulfilling the transcendence over the time in disposition;the return to the classical poetry,integrating the tradition linguistically again.Against the background of the two returns,the paper discusses the absorptive function of Confucianism and the classical poetry as cultural memory on the mental subject of Wu while examining and reflecting the complicated relationship between Chinese new poetry and the cultural tradition,the classical and foreign poetry.