The Romantic Ideal And Classical Spirit

XU Zhi-mo was a poet who absorbed the quintessence of the Chinese and the Western culture. Being influenced by the romanticism and the aestheticism in the Western literature, his poems had inherited and developed the lyric tradition of ancient Chinese poetry, thus reached the perfect unity of the perception and the rationality, the tradition and modern times, the romantic ideal and the classical spirit. This thesis will discuss the emotional implication and the artistic form of XU's poems, and fix his position in the history of the Chinese poetry.Firstly, inspecting the basic theme of his poems from the angle of the emotion. At beginning, expounding his poems' foundation of the ancient Chinese literature and the Western culture, then deviding them into the early, the middle and the later stage to emerge the process in which he acted on his ideal of romantic love. At last, enriching and promoting the intension of love by the human sympathy ran through his life.Secondly, elaborating the inheritance and the variation in his poems on the classical romanticism, such as images and the artistic mood, the musical sense composed of rhyme, rhythm and repeat, and the innovation on the form of characters, to understand the perpetual artistic charm of his poems.Thirdly, Studying and locating XU' poems in the historical background of the lyric tradition of the whole Chinese poetry, affirming his tremendous contributions to push the free verses written in the vernacular forward.