Historical Imagination Of Individuation:The Poerty Scene In 1990s And The Breakthough Possibility

"Historical Imagination of Individuation" was originally proposed by Chen Chao.As a critical concept that interacts closely with the poetry scene,it shows a strong vitality,explanatory power,and generalizing ability in the course of history.“Historical imagination of Individuation” is not a simple superposition of "individuation","history" and "imagination",but a reflection of the interactions of collisions,compromises,and mutual reconciliation among these three parties.Because of the lack of self-consistency among these three notions,the concept contains the anxieties and urgent demands on the current poetry.In this thesis,the "Historical Imagination of Individuation" was traced back to the concept generation in the 1990 s.It explored how the ideological resources represented by the three vocabularies of "individuation","history" and "imagination" in the concept were born,influenced and shaped the poetry scene of the nineties.At the same time,it focused on discussing the causes of the poetry in the 1990 s,its possible bottlenecks,and how to make a breakthrough.This thesis is divided into four chapters.Chapter I: identity crisis and "appropriate sense of history." As the origin of the identity issue,this chapter firstly summarizes the historical changes of the identities of the contemporary poet,and states that the identity crisis not only exists,but also has led to further differentiation and fission of the poet group in the 1990 s.Then,the topic proceeds to the 1990 s,focusing on the concept of “middle-aged” widely interpreted by “political critics”.As a typical metaphorical imagination,the evolution of the concept of “middle-aged” has reflected the varieties of the identity of the poet group to some extent.In the end,the middle-aged issue is manifested as the poet’s search for "a proper sense of history." The so-called "proper" is a compromise with the times features.The so-called "historical sense" is a historical perception with personal characteristics.Chapter II: The " individuation " of history.As the main manifestation of the problem,this chapter first discriminates the concept of “individuation” and clarifies that “individuation” in the 1990 s was both a rejection of past grand histories and collective gestures and a comprehensive requirement for the knowledge,talent,and skills of "individual poets".The most important thing is that "individuation " shows the expectation of "individual subject" under the reconstructed historical context.Furthermore,it traces the two traditions of “classicality” and “west” that existed at the beginning of the new poetry,discriminated the consequent dual anxiety of poets in the 1990 s,and transformed the anxiety through the “pursuit of modernity” new poetry tradition.In the end,it is expressed in a "self as tradition" way that the "individual subject" attempted to undertake and reconstruct the historical context in the 1990 s poetry writing.Chapter III: The Validity of " Individualized History".As a discussion of the rationality and effectiveness of the problem,this chapter firstly discriminates between poetry narratives and historical narratives.It states that poetry narratives are tied to the individual poets’ s historical reconstruction,which is endowed with "fictional" components of "historical imagination." Furthermore,through the identification of “sub-narrative” to “comprehensive creation”,it is argued that the individual poet’s writing cannot be separated from the “Chinese context” in which the poet is located.The fiction and history are intertwined with each other.Therefore,the examination of validity can be further studied as legal propositions of the poetry of 1990’s.Finally,through the recognition of the theme of confrontation in the 1990 s poems,it has been confirmed that the theme of confrontation in poetry has been secretly transformed into persistent confrontation.The most typical trend is that poetry is looking for a way to accommodate the public values of present life.Chapter IV: The possibility of breakthrough.As the extension and closure of the issue,this chapter first describes the relationship among the poetry’s possibility,imagination and history,and retrospectively states that overcoming the limitations of personal gestures in the 1990 s requires the historical perspective of poetry beyond “individuation”.However,when the question is refined into the perspective of poetic language,we conclude that the possibility of history comes from the questioning of poetry,and the imagination of poetry constructs history.Then,"impossibility" was introduced as the source of "possibility" of poetry.On the one hand,in excavating the general picture of contemporary creation and life,it is recognized that the current writing of poetry is unsustainable.On the other hand,it is assumed that the "impossibility" of this unsustainable performance is exactly the basis of the "possibility" of poetry.Finally,as an effective carrier of “impossibility”,the ambiguous position of "Historical Imagination of Individuation" is still valid today,but it cannot be exhaustive.It shows its own difficulties and hidden worries and is also trapped in the personal embarrassment.