The Translated Poetry Around The May 4～(th) And The Early Modern Chinese Poetry

The typical significance of the new culture movement around May 4th in 1919 was the establishment of several literary forms, among which modern Chinese poetry against the traditional aesthetic conception was circulated to be the most remarkable success during the first ten years of modern Chinese literature. It is certain that the continuity of Chinese poetry should not be denied, but under the situation that theory appeared before creation, the vanguard of the new culture movement had to seek an original form to prove the excellency of modem Chinese poetry. That is, modern Chinese poetry originated from Chinese traditional poetry, which must produce such serious problem that how the modern Chinese poetry could become mature when it turned down the nutrition from the traditional culture. It's no use thinking over whether the fountainhead of modern Chinese poetry was from Chinese culture or foreign culture, then the objective influence of foreign culture could be confirmed, which must give us another problem that how the foreign poetry affected the modern Chinese poetry. The pioneers, such as Hu Shi, Zou Zuoren, Guo Moruo, and Xu Zhimo, perhaps didn't think such problem form the point of scientific principle or theory, for they only cared about how to present the texts of modern Chinese poetry, but not the measures. Nowadays, academic circles often study the modern Chinese poetry's birth and development on the basis of traditional and foreign cultures. Some scholars lost the sight of translated poetry's relationship existing between Chinese and foreign poetry. Actually, translated poetry played the most important role and was considered to be the original foreign motive power affecting modern Chinese poetry.Although the research of translated poetry's influence has been being on since modern Chinese poetry's birthday, the feeble achievement in such research couldn't demonstrate the great effect because of the historical context. According to the present research condition, the paper employed the angle of translated poetry to study the foreign poetry's influence on modern Chinese poetry. During the course of influence, the initiation of poetics and the earlier modern Chinese poetry's unfavorable situation resulted in the specialty of translated poetry's influence, so the paper put emphasis on the influence of translated poetry around the May 4th on the early modern Chinese poetry.This dissertation consists of the following eight parts:The introduction enumerated some positive contributions to show translated poetry's importance. Then the basic methods and the train of thought were put forward on the base of analyzing overviews of the study on translated poetry's influence. At the same time, this part gave brief explanation to some argumentative viewpoints and some objective problems.Chapter 1, "the translated poetry in the new cultural context in the May 4th", is the basis of the whole paper. If there's no great upsurge of translated poetry, there must be no deep influence on modern Chinese poetry. And if there's no special characteristic of translated poetry in the May 4th, there must be no influence. Furthermore, if there's no trace of influence, there must be no evidence to prove translated poetry's influence on modern Chinese poetry. If there's no intermediary acting force, the influence must not take place. Because of the reasons above, the first two sections proved that there's a vast amount of translated poetry through the investigation of literary mass organizations and magazines, the third section listed some traces of influence in the early poets' works, the last section discussed that the translated poetry is the intermediary of translated poetry's influence on modern Chinese poetry. All of these gave the paper a solid foundation from the resource, target and measure of influence.Chapter 2, "the translated poetry around the May 4th and the early modern Chinese poetry's language", thought that the reason why the translated poetry could affect the modern Chinese poetry's language caused by the language conception of translating poetry, the obvious result of which was westernization. Modern Chinese poetry's vocabulary, morphology and sentence structure have become rich and varied. The first section approached the language conception of translating around the May 4th in order to illustrate that it has set up the new language conception for modern Chinese poetry. The second section approached the westernization of modern Chinese poetry's expression and language caused by translated poetry in order to illustrate the translated poetry's effect and how to understand it. Section three probed into the effect from Japanese, this is the special instance of section two. The last section is the specific illustration of modern Chinese poetry's language westernization.Chapter 3, "the translated poetry around the May 4th and the early modern Chinese poetry's form", discussed the translated poetry's influence on modern Chinese poetry from the viewpoint of form. Modern Chinese poetry has various forms, besides verse, there are free verse, prose poem and short-formed verse, besides lyrics, there is narrative poem. These forms imitated or originated from translated poetry's forms. The first section analyzed that free verse took its shape because of not only the translated poetic text, but also the limitation of translation and the early modern Chinese poetry's requirement. The second section thought that the foreign verse translated to prose and the prose poem translation were the main reasons bringing on Chinese prose poem. The next section discussed Chinese short-formed poem was affected by Tagore's poem and the short Japanese poem consisting of seventeen characters, then analyzed the main reasons why such two kinds of poem could affect Chinese poem. The forth one analyzed the influence on modern Chinese metrical verse from the two aspects of theory and practice, and discussed the proposition of poems with metrical pattern had the positive significance to the development of modern Chinese poetry. The last section believed that Chinese narrative poem has been created according to the translated narrative poem. The functional target and some persons' theory initiation gave the birth of Chinese narrative poem.In chapter 4, "the translated poetry around the May 4th and the early modern Chinese poetry's creation", the author thought that the early poets had different cultural background, for they accepted different foreign culture. As for the acceptance of the effect from translated poetry, some poets read the foreign poems directly and translated poetry's effect behaved on translating course and thinking diversion, but not the text of translated poem. Some poets including some translators were influenced by reading some others' translated poetry. So the first section discussed the relationship of promotion, identity and mutual aid between translated poetry and modern Chinese poetry as a whole. The second section discussed the translated poetry's effect on non-translators, which was mainly presented by the aids on form and spirit, the enlightenment of emotion, the model of poetic forms and the thinking innovation of images. The third one discussed the translated poetry's effect on translators, which was mainly presented by offering the creative resource, enlightening creative inspiration, transforming creative style, enhancing the creative capability and practicing the creative conception.Chapter 5, "the sub-translated poetry around the May 4th and the early modern Chinese poetry's creation", was the special instance of chapter 4, that is, the sub-translated poetry affected the translators. The key word, sub-translation, hasn't been classified clearly in the field of translation, but it was one of the main translation types which influenced modern Chinese poetry's creation around the May 4th, so the paper used one chapter to discussed it. The first section approached it was a kind of translation existing objectively doctrinally. The third one analyzed most poets started to create depending on sub-translating. The conception discussed above had to make sub-translated poetry affect sub-translators' creation, which was the main content of section three. This section enumerated the most famous early poets' creative movement to prove sub-translated poetry's influence. Chapter 6, "the whole influence of translated poetry around the May 4th on the early modern Chinese poetry", summed up the above contents. Besides the influence on language, form and creation, the translated poetry helped modern Chinese poetry establish the style status, renovate the formal conception and alter the modernity course of modern Chinese poetry. So the first section discussed the translated poem was the recourse, the creative model of modern Chinese poem. The translated poetry set up the epoch of modern Chinese poetry and testified the accomplishment of modern Chinese poetry's creation. Section two analyzed that the translated poem broke the Chinese traditional aesthetic and formal conception and started a new aesthetic tradition, which promoted the development of modern Chinese poetry. In section three, the author thought the modern Chinese poetry's modernity was caused by translated poetry that was the power to force the modernity's development in ethical culture.The conclusion was the summary of the whole paper. This part discussed the birth and the development was the two factors which had similarities and differences. We ought to admit that the Chinese culture gave the birth to modern Chinese poetry, and we also ought to admit that the translated poetry gave some influence on modern Chinese poetry's development.