On Chinese Modern Poetic Theory And Foreign Influence

It is generally acknowledged for years in the field of Chinese contemporary literature study that modern poems are more greatly influenced by foreign cultures then novels, operas and proses. Some people even say that Chinese modern poems are just foreign poems in Chinese. Thus, researchers studied the influence and rheology of romanticism, symbolism and modernism in China; studied the performance of Guo Moruo, Xu Zhime, Feng Zhi, Ai Qing and Mu Dan with foreign influence; studied the development of symbolists'theory of pure poem, modernists'theory of intellect and modernization of new verse; studied different aspects of the relationship between Chinese and western poetics.But what's the real connotation of Chinese modern poem? Focusing on new? Focusing on young? Vernacular poetry? Style verse? Modern Chinese poetry? Free verse? Europeanizing poetry?In recent years, the popularity of modernity makes the study focusing on modernism and regards obtaining art of poetry of western symbolism in later period as the achievement of Chinese poems to keep pace with the highest art of poetry. It's realy significant, but just so simple? In the thirty years developing of Chinese new verse,what's the relationship on earth between tradition and present, classicality and modernism, eastern and western as well as conservative and radical. How new verse developed before 1949? Did politics influence the developing of new verse after 1949? What's the relationship between the development of new verse before and after 1979? All these questions make people think and seek the modern poetic theory. After reading lots of firsthand datas, I drew the following conclusions:Firstly, influenced by both foreign culture of the time and western tradition, Chinese modern poetic theory is diversity and multielement. On one hand, Chinese contemporary poetry got so many tutors from Indian and Japanese short poem of the same time, fall-out of British and American romanticism, French early and later period of symbolism poetics, British and American modern poetic theory as well as Russian poetic theory of the proletariat. On the other hand, Chinese modern poetic theory is also deeply influenced by western tradition. Luo Niansheng praised highly for ancient Greek classical quantity meter which is different from modern accent meter. Liang Shiqiu, an apprentice of Irving Babbit's new classicism, was againt modern poem to be too free. Guo Moruo, Zong Baihua and Liang Zongdai were all influenced by Johann Wolfgang Goethe's great personality and art of poetry. Wang Xihe, Fu Donghua, Zhu Guangqian and Wang li hoped to discover a poetic theory that combined both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign as a whole thing.Secondly, the pioneers of Chinese modern poetic theory argued a lot for different educational background and different personal natural endowment. Thus, the special geographic condition of China, the special age setting of 20th century and different educational background, namely space, time and personality make a concerted effort into the diversity and multielement of Chinese modern poetic theory. From the aspect of Receptional Aesthetic, different person may have different receptional screen and horizon of expectation. Thus different person may have different attitude on one poem, poetics or poetics works. Even the complicated national situation of modern China made poem-lover be in different style like classicism (Wu Mi), Modernism (Mu Dan), Nationalism (Ai Qing). The connotation of modern poem has been continuously understood differently just after the first appearance.Thirdly, traditional influence on Chinese modern poetic theory shouldn't belittled. It's not the main part of this thesis, but we still couldn't look down upon the strength of tradition. The relation between modern poem and ancient poem cann't be cut off, although the appearance of modern poem does count on foreign influence. Some modern poets even restarted to write ancient poem and some advocated to new meter. An important fact is that the poet who is good at foreign languages and can directly get illumination from foreign poems tends to agree with its value, vice versa. Poets who is not good at foreign languages can absorb nourishment just from folklores and Chinese ancient poems. Moreover, aesthetics tradition settled in Chinese mind also restricts thinking and feeling. Poetry of the Tang Dynasty not only contains the spirit of freedom, width and unrestraint as well as the content of richness, depth and indirectactfulness, but also makes the Chinese versification reach the summit of beauty in form of world versification. None of the poets in sussessive dynasties didn't dream to be in the glorious age of Tang Dynasty, they just laid aside poety of the Song Dynasty and verse of the Yuan Dynasty.'Critical review'school naturally got the conclusion of being worse than before through comparing modern poem to the essance of ancient poem.Lastly, more attention are need for scientific and theoretical analysis on Chinese modern poetic theory. Poem may have different form for different age, region, country, languange, aethestics tendency. But since it's a poem, there must be some special formulation that is different form other literary types. Poem will be narrating, narrative poem is still poem, never novel. Poem will have roles and conflicts, but it's not opera. Poem that is full of freedom is never a prose. In modern China, no one will confuse poem, novel and opera, but someone will purposely mix poem and prose together. Among those, Hu Shi, advocating'say when you want and say what you want', and Ai Qing, advocating'the prose beauty of poem', are the most influencing 2 persons. Hu Shi proposed the vernacular poetry and Ai Qing created free verse and also issued On Poetry in the form of traditinal notes on poets and poetry. These conformed to the tide of free verse overspreaded since Whitman's Leaves of Grass published in America. The core of it is the reforming spirit in 20th century, which led to the abandon of Chinese traditional versification by modern poem circles. It's a great event reflecting age spirit but damaging traditional art of poetry.The thesis disscusses about both the process of how modern poetic theory accepted foreign influence and some important theory on art of poetry. It contains four chapters.The first three chapters individually discuss about'the space and time of modern poetic theory and foreign influence','the composing of the theorists'and'diversified forms'(works and essays). The forth chapter is case analysises of the most important work on poetry in modern Chinese literature. Among which Zhu Guangqian's On Poetry quoted both Chinese and western peotic theory. And among the thesis it is the first time for the other three works to be analysised. Hong Shen's Lyrics Reading of Drama and Recitation of Poem compared rhythm and meter in Chinese and English poetry as well as interfluve of rhythm between poem and prose. Liu Dabai's Discussion on Rhythm of Chinese Poetry is the first Chinese poetics study in modern form, which objectively evaluates classical-form poetry. Zhu Zhitai's Study on Poetry is the first works in modern China on comparative poetics which discusses and quotes both Chinese poetry and English poetry. Appendix is by now the most complete list of papers and works on Chinese modern poetic theory and criticism collected by the author.