Chinese Scholar's Study Of Poetry In The 20th Century

The two conditions that a person can be a scholar are "a sheer rational mode of thinking" and "a mode of living for study's sake." The Chinese scholar phenomenon is the outcome of China during the 20th century, which originated when the Chinese modern academic independence-awareness was awakened, and it evolved and developed in the arduous progress of Chinese modern academic independence. The poetry written by the modern scholars in this process with a mode of expressing their thoughts or feelings, offers an object and range of study for this Chinese Scholar's Study of Poetry in the 20th Century. The first connotation of these scholar's poems, roughly classified as ancient and modern, can be called "the new voice of poetry". The ancient source refers to the "intelligent poetry" or "commentary poetry" flourished in the Song Dynasty. Its modern source is the "Tongguang" style popularized in the late Qing Dynasty and at the beginning of the Republic of China. The gist of Tongguang style poems is to imitate the poem style adopted by the poets in the Song Dynasty instead of that in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Such kind of poetry inclines to "cite the rare and out-of-date anecdotes and quotations" and "has a nostalgia for the past", with which Tongguang style shapes a fundamental pattern of form and content for the scholar's poetry. The second connotation might be called "the other form of their study", that is to say, the scholar's poetry came into being as an organic whole of their academic study. Its surface layer is "learning in the poem", for the scholars themselves are "learners" or "accomplished learned men". The deep layer of it is "humanity in the poem". To decipher and explain those unique writings, images and theories can restore and delineate their spiritual world hidden in the "rare and out-of-date anecdotes and quotations" and "nostalgia for the past". What's more, it may sketch a mini-history of the Chinese thoughts. The scholar's poetry not only represents the emerging process of the Chinese modern academic study from a deep psychological layer, but also constitutes a part of the modern Chinese history and culture in a quite tortuous way.