Modernism Or Realism

The poetics of Jiuye Poetry School being Modernism or Realism has been a"debate" to which different reception groups of different times respond variously.This thesis endeavors to analyze the factors that have been intervening in and leading the still open "debate" to reveal the causes for,the driving forces of,and the vital significance of the"debate".Guided by symptomatic reading,this thesis takes perplexing arguments like paradoxes and ambiguities in scholarly works as breakthroughs to analyze the sources and logic of critical discourses.Meanwhile,this thesis observes the critical history where Modernism and Realism compete with or penetrate each other as well as the two take turns to dominate,aiming to explore the cultural politics behind the "debate".This thesis comprises Introduction,three Chapters,and Conclusion.Introduction contains research background,research questions,literature review,and thesis framework.Chapter One describes a critical trajectory of the poetics of the Jiuye Poetry School in chronological order.Its poetics being Modernism was favored in the 1940s,which can be supported by the responses made by literary leftists.In the early and middle 1980s,scholarly discussions of the"debate" were strictly grounded in the realm of Realism.Since the late 1980s,Modernism as its poetics has been widely accepted again but,in this context,Modernism has been further categorized as "Modernism with Chinese characteristics".The interaction between"truth" and"strategy" is realized by agreements and disagreements among Jiuye poets’ interpretations,mainstream criticism,and the narrative of literary history,as well as differences among expressions of Jiuye poets and their expressions in different times.In Chapter two,three recurring poetics of the Jiuye Poetry School are pinpointed and concluded to study the confrontation,negotiation,and mediation between two sets of critical discourses featuring Modernism and Realism respectively.Centers of the"debate" lie in Jiuye poets’requirement for and practice of complex poetic forms and popular poetics’ preferences for poetic content.The vagueness of poetic language is related to solutions made by Jiuye poets regarding their reception groups who either"understand" or "do not understand" the Jiuye Poetry.The "debate" is also confined to traditional and modern cognitive frameworks.By visiting modern Chinese poetry since the May Fourth Movement and reflecting on classical Chinese poetry,the Jiuye Poetry School,whose poetics being Modernism,synthesizes and transforms modernity and traditionality.Focusing on the reversal in scholarly reviews on poetics of the Jiuye Poetry School,Chapter Three leaves differences of aesthetic choices for the discussion of cultural politics of the "debate".The discipline of political atmosphere and ideology,the change of the spirit of the age and knowledge frame,and the evolution of historical viewpoint of literature and research paradigms,all result in the pendulum-like "debate" swinging between Realism and Modernism.The re-acknowledgment of Modernism in the 1980s was made possible jointly by political and cultural projects.With the advent of Pluralism,Modernism is no longer a taboo;instead,it rises to be the mainstream thanks to its distinctive aestheticism.However,an overwhelming and essentialized scholarship as well as a "hermeneutic circle" are brought forward.