A Study On Wu Mi's Poetic Thoughts In The View Of Modernity

Wu Mi, a writer with independent thoughts and valuable cultural integrity, used to point out a good many defects of the mainstream of the literature of his time and problems in the development of literary theory. Furthermore, he put forward a lot of valuable suggestions and solutions to the problems, which have turned out to be great references in our current studies. We must lay more importance to his ideas and thoughts. Nevertheless, at his time, Wu Mi's thoughts of poetics fell into neglect, which indicated the inadequacy in the process of modernization of Chinese literary theory. It cannot be denied that this inadequacy has been an obstacle to the progress of Chinese literary theory. Thus, we should consider Wu Mi's thoughts as great reference while reflecting on the history and present situation of Chinese literary research so as to develop modern Chinese literary theory.From the standpoint of modernity, the thesis intends to make a comprehensive analysis of Wu Mi' s poetic thoughts and characterstics of his practice of literary criticism, exploring the significance and value of his poetics thoughs to the development of Chinese modern literary theory. This thesis consists of six parts as follows.The introductory part is mainly concerned about the significance of the topic, the reason why the topic is chosen and the current research findings. As for the significance of the topic, with the analysis of two key words, namely "poetics" and "modernity" , the thesis points out that the key of the research lies in the combination of the view of modernity and the study of Wu Mi' s poetic thoughts, hopefully through which a new exploring way will be carved out. With regard to reasons why the topic is chosen, on the one hand, his poetic thoughts are unique in his time; on the other hand, his thoughts imply the complexity and potentiality of the modernization of Chinese literary theory. With respct to the existing research findings, this thesis is intended to make a review of past studies on Wu Mi' s thoughts, especially the studies conducted by the cultural conservatives and Xue Heng ,and to point out the possible further studies in this field.Chapter one is mainly about the cultural foundation of Wu Mi' s poetic theory. Firstly, we intend to explore the specific cultural foundation on which Wu Mi' s poetic thoughts are developed . With a consideration of the conflict between New Cultural Movement and cultural conservatism, this part analyzes the complexity of the cultural circumstance and multidimensional values of Wu Mi's time. On the one hand, radicals' modern way of thought has imposed tremendous impact on the construction of new culture and literature. On the one hand, conservatives put forward different ideas and thoughts, showing an opposite stand. The opposite positions of two parties indicate both two incompatible thoughts and various possibilities of cultural choice. Thus, the study of Wu Mi's poetic thoughts involves the analysis of the complicated cultural structure. Secondly, this chapter discusses Wu Mi's idea of developing new culture by combining the essences of both Chinese and foreign culrures,which mainly stemed from Guan Xue and New Humanism. With the idea of integrating Chinese and foreign cultural elements, when Wu Mi compiled Xue Heng, he shows more openness than conservatives of his time. Thus, it is worthwhile to reconsider and revalue Wu Mi's cultural idea of cultural modernization, which will provide us with great assistance in understanding of the complexity and possibility of Chinese cultural development.Chapter two regards integration as the character of Wu Mi's poetic thoughts and conducts an analysis of it from the intension of literature theory' s modernity. Literature theory' s modernity isn' t an isolated concept, but a related category.On one hand, the integration between literary autonomy and social heteronomy is the abscissa of the coordinate axis. On the other hand, the integration of ancient and present poetic resources, and Chinese and western poetic resources is the ordinate of the coordinate axis. Integration in Wu Mi's poetic thoughts is embodied in two aspects: Firstly, it means the integration of ancient and present poetic resources, and Chinese and western poetic resources. Wu Mi maintains that various poetic resources should be treated equally so as to find the similarities and differences among them. Only with a broad cultural view and calm attitude toward various poetics resources can a new system of modern poetics be achieved. The thought of three stages, one of Wu Mi's great research findings, is a specific example of the integration of ancient and present poetic resources and Chinese and western poetic resources. It is one of his unique poetic terms based on the integration of traditional Chinese poetic theory and western poetic ideas. Secondly, it means the integration between literary autonomy and social heteronomy. The former requires the study of internal elements of literature, attaching importance to the unique attributes of literature, while the latter asks for external study of literature, expressing the social expectations on literature. The two aspects affect and restrict each other, making up the two contradicting poles of Wu Mi's thoughts. Wu Mi's idea of integrating the two aspects offers an important view toward the balance between external and internal literary research and plays an important role in the exploration of literary theory modernization.Chapter three is intended to make an interpretation and analysis of Wu Mi's critical practice. In his practice of literary critic, Wu Mi places great importance to the criteria, means and standards of literary criticism and brings forward a set of basic academic terms. Furthermore, on the cross-cultural standpoint of view, he exerts sense and sensibility to conduct lots of literary studies, which embody modern academic thoughts and means. Wu Mi pays much attention to poetry and fiction critic. Wu Mi maintains that the criticism of poetry should involve the study of two aspects, namely external form and internal sentiment of poetry. According to him, the beauty of poetic sentiment is mainly embodied in the combination of sense and sensibility while the beauty of poetic rhythm indicates the integration of the new and the old. The two aspects are compatible with each other. In the time when the feelings and individuality were overemphasized, Wu Mi's poetic thought shows another tendency of literary critic by proclaiming the combination of sense and sensibility, and the integration of traditional and new elements. As for fiction criticism, Wu Mi's shows disapproval of the pragmatism and positivism. Instead, he prefers to Wang Guowei's idea of interpreting the value and meaning of fictions from the view of philosophy and aesthetics. Comparing with Wang Guowei, Wu Mi has a more open view of life experience and philosophy and he puts more important to the specific aesthetic features of fictions. With the literary view and modern western fiction theories, he conducts the theory-conscious literary criticism, which is helpful to improve modern fiction criticism. This kind of conception involving study of philosophy and features of fictions is finely embodied in his review of A Dream of Red Chamber and analysis of "ideal fiction".Chapter four is intended to explore the unique values of Wu Mi's poetic thought and reasons why his idea fell into neglect in his time. From a historical view, Wu Mi's doctrines not only rectified the prevailing radical literary thoughts in his time but displayed unique features in the conservative camp. Comparing with the Guicui School, Wu Mi shows a modern thinking way of induction and deduction. Comparing with new Confucians' approach of inner reflection, Wu Mi's idea lays importance to the comparison and reference between Chinese and western poetics. Unlike Mei Guangdi, another representative of the Xueheng School, Wu Mi pays more attention to the self-reliance of literature, showing a modern view and broaden horizons. Thus, Wu Mi's poetic thought plays an essentially important role in the development of Chinese poetics in the 20th century. Unfortunately, Wu Mi's doctrine encountered indifference and neglect in his time. Reasons can be illustrated as follows. On the one hand, the macro-cultural background was not an ideal foundation for the development of Wu Mi's poetic theory. He made his contribution to the development of modern poetics, but his ideas transcended the values and recognition of the academic mainstream in his time and accordingly his thoughts were doomed to be neglected. On the other hand, the defects of his poetics prevented its further improvement in the development of Chinese poetics.The part of conclusion is intended to discuss the connection between Wu Mi's poetic thoughts and modernity of current literary theory. Although Wu Mi's ideas cannot provide us with effective solutions to the current problemsi in the delvopment of modernity of literary theory, the stand and approaches he conducts provide us with a great eye opener and have showed great enlighting significance.