The Traditional Modern Re-starting--Chen Xianfa's Poetry Research

Although the modern poetry of China was nominally created to break the forms of classic poems, it fails to strip the influences of ancient poetry and traditional culture in the past 100 years. From the May 4th, modern poets are always faced with the dilemma of unleashing the tradition or going near to it, so the links between modern poetry and Chinese traditional culture as well as classic poetry are hard to define. However, we must admit that modern poems of China can not survive all the way to present time without cultural traditions no matter how we see this issue. Definitely, the best solution of this is to reshape the classic poetry by absorbing the essential part of traditional culture meanwhile localizing the Han culture and poetry so that the new poetry is both traditional and modern; both familiar and refreshing. Over 100 years, many poets have been expbring into this area, but quite a few put it into reality. Among them is Mr. Chen Xianfa. In his poems, there is grief for the loss of traditions. He intentionally combines the traditional and modern elements, leading his poems to an ancient-and-modern style.The whole thesis consists of three chapters, from which the poems written by Chen Xianfa will be analysed and interpreted. In the first chapter, the links between hometown and tradition are put forward. Mr. Chen Xianfa directs readers to a spiritual home of hometown and tradition by describing his own hometown "Kongzhen". In the second chapter, the writer probes how the traditional works, as all-embracing they are, influenced the creation of Chen Xianfa’s poems. He gave new life to traditions while instilling them with his own style, which can be shown from three aspects. First, there is a sound combination of Confucianism and Emprise culture. Those two vastly different cultures respectively serve as heart and bone of his poems, which can be seen in how he deals with realistic themes. Second is the inheritance and carrying forward of poetry in Song Dynasty. Last is the language. Mr. Chen Xianfa not only draws lessons from traditional styles with his personal characteristics, but also widens the boundary of language through weighing the words again and again. The third chapter is focused on how the tradition becomes an important part of his poems as a methodology.There are mixed responses upon his poems. This thesis aims to unveil the real situation of his writing and uncover whether this style, mixed with "traditional" and "modern" features, is acceptable and what’s the significance of and limitation to it. Meanwhile, it is a concrete showcase to endow modern poems with classic trends. Therefore, poems created by Chen Xianfa enjoy milestone meaning in this field.