On The Relevancy Of Variability Between The Concept Of Chinese New Poetry And That Of Ancient Poetry

This dissertation is an attempt to elaborate the relevancy of variability between the concept of Chinese new poetry and that of ancient poetry. For this purpose, it is not only necessary to study the possible successional relationship between new poetry and ancient poetry, but also essential to discuss how the new poetry, which has been influenced by Western poetry, was combined with the ancient poetry to form a new aesthetic mode, so as to explore the variation in the common expression of human poetry. The concept of poetry is the total of the viewpoints about poetry that are embodied in the creation and theory of poets and critics. It can be reflected in aesthetic content, forms and dictions of poetry.I make study of this issue in the dissertation because the relationship between the new poetry and the ancient poetry is very complicated, and the aesthetic characteristics vary greatly from one to the other. Some former related studies hold that the variation is an inevitable trend of development and is also a kind of progress of poetry aesthetic appreciation because of the prejudice in the viewpoint on literary development history, or think that the development of the new poetry is the fusion result of Chinese ancient poem and western poetry. In this way, the unbalance and the insufficiency of the so-called "fusion" are neglected. Therefore, the real connection of Chinese new poetry and ancient poem has not been considered clearlyand effectively, and the different aesthetic characteristics of each have also not been explored thoroughly.Therefore, this dissertation attempts to reconsider about this problem from a view opposite to that of literature development history—that is literature-split history view. The methodology of this dissertation on the relationship between Chinese ancient poem and new poetry will be based on literary variation of comparative literature. The literature-split history view would make us give up doing that kind of "tracing-back reading" to confirm the modern literary phenomenon, in another word, make us not seek for a legal starting point for the new poetry with the "New" and "Modernist" ideas. In addition, the literature-split history view would bring us a brand new aspect of view on the research of the modern poetry transformation. And at the same time, the problem about ancient and modern Chinese poetry is in fact the problem about Chinese and Western poetry. Chinese new poetry actually belongs to one of the branches of western poetry and the interference of western poetry provides another road for development of Chinese modern poetry. The research on the connection between new poetry and ancient poetry is in fact the research on the Chinese and western poetry concept. And because the communication of Chinese and western poetry idea was unbalanced in the development of Chinese modern poetry, the "fusion" view is not a good way to explain this problem. By contrast, the variation study of comparative literature offers us a much better method. The variation study of comparative literature means that the literature variation phenomenon with national literary tradition which was under foreign influences should be considered from the longitudinal and latitudinal aspects of literary development. The birth and development of Chinese new poetry is actually a good example of the variation study of comparative literature. In addition, because of the unbalanced exchanges of Chinese and western poetry, it is more necessary to implement the variation study of comparative literature to explore the concrete variation in the exchanges. It is safe to say that the variation study ofcomparative literature provides the most solid theories foundation for the study on ancient and modern Chinese literature, which includes Chinese and western literature.This dissertation can be divided into three parts in the argument body.First, the origin of Chinese new poetry is re-discussed. To a certain extent, the origins of the new poetry decide its later development characteristics and trend. But at present, there is a kind of mistaken ideas about the origins of the new poetry. Such idea holds that the new poetry is from the ancient poetry tradition and then regards it as an inevitable choice of ancient poetry development in modern society. And " the poetry revolution" conducted by the scholars of late Qing dynasty such as Huang Zunxian, Liang Qichao and so on is considered as the origin of new poetry. This point of view is a typical understanding of literary development history view and tries to confirm the origin of new poetry from the new poetry standpoint established behind and some similarities between the two parties. The first chapter of the dissertation will have a detailed analysis about this question and will investigate the origins of the new poetry from a new point of view—literature-split history view.If we admit that there is split phenomenon of the modern culture and language, then it is not difficult to realize that the change of the poetry is also like the same. "The poetry revolution" conducted by Huang Zunxian and Liang Qichao just did the modern transformation from ancient poetry system. And the modern poets after Hu Shi made another poetry revolution which was utterly different from the former. Even if there were some similarities between the two, we still can't say that the former is the origin of the latter. Only when we make clear the essential difference of the two, can we understand that Hu Shi's assertion of "modern vernacular poetry" has huge heterogeneity compared to Chinese ancient poetry. Exactly this kind of new poetry change ended the Chinese ancient poetry tradition. This phenomenon affected the relevancy of new poetry development and ancient poetry tradition deeply.Secondly, the dissertation carries on the research on the poetry idea embodied in romanticism, realism and modernism of new poetry in the following chapters. No doubt, all the three schools of New Poetry were stimulated by the corresponding literary schools of the western literature, and the introduction of western poetry to China led to variations in the native poetry of China. It is true that some concepts in ancient Chinese poetry joined in the development of the new poetry, but the intrinsic need of new poetry for its development and the context of the age, together with the influence of the western poetry, the application of ancient poetry concepts to the new poetry was also based on variation.We can say that such a complicated process is the process of literary variation. This dissertation tries to do the investigation from three angles of view on the relevancy of variability between three schools of new poetry and ancient poetry idea. Firstly, in regard to romantic school, the connection between the school and the dominated lyrical tradition of Chinese ancient poetry is discussed. The dominated lyrical tradition of the ancient poetry restricts the new poetry to accept the imagine content in the western romantic poetry, and the structure of "feeling to reason" within ancient poetry was broken in the romantic current of thoughts in the May-fourth new poetry. The direct expression of emotion in these romantic new poetrys catered to the free form of the modern vernacular poetry at the initial stage and also influenced the lyrical model of the later modern poetry. Secondly, in regard to realist school, the connection between the school and the functional tradition of Chinese ancient poetry is discussed. Although from the theories system, the realism of modern poetry was ushered in from western's realist literature concept, it is the second edition of the functional tradition concept of Chinese ancient poetry from the whole thinking way. In another word, both of them emphasize the function that poetry has in society. Although in the beginning, the new poetry opposed the tradition of "text with carrying moral" within Chinese ancient poetry, on many occasions it aimed at the so-called "old morals" and affirmed the sense ofresponsibility to the times and the society. Thirdly, in regard to modernist school, the connection between the school and the imagery tradition of Chinese ancient poetry is discussed. The modernism of the new poetry is the demand of its own development, and also is the demand to reconstruct the form of esthetic expression of the new poetry. It ushered in the western modernist poetry concept, but to a large extent, it had indispensable connection with the imagery tradition of Chinese ancient poetry. That means to convey the esthetic meaning with the medium of images. The image's artistic appeal becomes an important factor to decide whether the poem is successful or not. Compared with the western modernism, the new poetry would certainly emphasize the meaning of poem in order to overcome the shortages of the initial vernacular poem. And this is just in accordance with the ancient poetry tradition of using images to express the poetry meaning. But compared with the imagery tradition of the Chinese ancient poetry, there are many imagist poems but few esthetic poems in the new poetry.Finally, the dissertation attempts to think about how to establish new poetry's form from the ancient and new poetry concept. To some extent, the form of Chinese ancient poetry has become one part of the aesthetic appreciation. However, because the Chinese language becomes more and more complicated, the poetry's form has limited its expression. "To break the form" put forward by Hu Shi has its own reason. But "to break the form" doesn't mean "having no form". The mistaken idea on vernacular poetry lies in the confusion of poetry and prose. The prose poem in new poetry has its own reason to exist, but it can not be the reason of having no form of poetry. Therefore the establishment of new poetry confronted with the task to create its own form by making use of the variability from Chinese poetry as well as from western poetry. From the creation practice of "crescent poets" such as Wen Yiduo to the theoretical exploration of poets and scholars such as Bian Zhilin, He Qifang, Lin Geng and so on, their aim is the same. At end, the dissertation tries to put forward the idea to create new poetry's form on the basis of the former research on thisproblem. It means that the regular pause of Chinese language tone can be one standard of establishing lines. In addition, to employ the regular rhyme and the words with level and oblique tones suitably in the lines can make the poetry achieve the best esthetic appreciation effect.