The Concept Of Free Verse Changes (1917-1937)

Free verse in its literal meaning refers to the kinds of poetry that abandons meter, rhyme, format or other poetic forms. But as a poetic style in modern western poetry, most of the free verses still retain some kinds of meter or rhyme. Attention is also laid to foot, syllable, metrics or even loose rhyme. Cadence and rhythm are taken as expressive means of passion and meaning. The form of poetry was first introduced into China as "the revolution of poetic form" during the late Qing dynasty to the literature revolution of the May 4th period and latter became the mainstream in development of the Chinese "new poetry".Free verse, as a modern poetic form in the west, was introduced into China as the "poetic revolution" during the May 4th literature revolution. Looking from "outside" into "inside", it was under the circumstance of social eagerness for the pursuit of modernization among the Chinese,and driven by the historical complex arisen in a group of radical intellectuals who vowed for "revolution". From the "inside" to the "outside" view, after the poetic peak of the classic poetry in the Tang dynasty, the substantiation of poetic forms and symbols in the late Qing dynasty restrained poets' aesthetics seeking and idealistic senses during their literary creation. Thus, they felt a need to break the old poetic form and system with new content substances. In the grandiose historical phalanx, free verse became the most common form in the Chinese "new Poetry". However, does the Chinese "New Poetry" on its way to accept the western free verse really "perceive" the potential and limitation of the form style? At the time accompanied by the language revolution of shifting from classic Chinese to vernacular Chinese where modern Chinese underwent an unstabilized stage, the Chinese free verse received tremendous criticism and attacks on its language and forms. How does it response to those debates? In its open-minded poetic practice, how does the Chinese free verse use its regional language to resolve the problems encountered?The thesis argues that from its earlier translations by the literature revolutionists to the creative practices and theoretical clarifications by its proponents, the Chinese free verse had been operative and under the level of proper manipulation. However, the poetic form of the Chinese free verse was not the kind of the "undisciplined". During its regularization, not only there were debates from the opposite but more importantly and internally it encountered from time to time, like any poetic genre, the questioning and defending of its basic format formation. The discussion of these complexities is unrolled on multiple aspects. The first chapter of thesis starts from the earliest form of the Chinese free verse - the advocation of the vernacular poetry, from where attention is allotted on how the free verse that had been imported and translated underwent transplantation and modification together with the entanglement of ideological complexity. At the same time, the thesis also discussed the miscomprehension of symbolism and imagism when the Chinese vernacular poetry took as its example the western free verse, thus lead to the romanticism. The second chapter discusses the contribution of the metrics school and the crescent school, who pondered over the liberation and proselization of the "new poetry" put forward the necessity for form order of the new verse. Their explorations on syllable, meter and cadence of the "new poetry" accumulated valuable qualities for the Chinese new verse. Chapter three explores the progresses of the free verse in the 1930s. After the entry of the 1930s, free verse once again became the mainstream in the new poetic forum, but it was not the repetition of the old tune. It, at the same time inheriting the valued recourses of classic Chinese poetry, absorbed the essence of the symbolism and imagism of the western poetry and made it surpass the other in language and forms. In this chapter, the author starting from Cheng Qianfen's review of Dai Wangshu's Wangshucao in the 30s of the twentieth century tries to reconsider the gains and losses of Dai on poetic forms. Chapter four starts from the participation of most papers and magazines in free verse practice and theoretical exploration and taking Feiming's theory of"new poem"and Zhu Guangqian and Luo Nian's investigation on"rhythm"reexamines their reflection on the complex relationships and the entanglement between the linguistic form of"free"and"poem".It has to be noted that in order for the convenience of discussion and exploration of the questions, the coverage is limited to the period of 1917-1937. As a matter of fact, standing on the ground of reflection, the ideological transition and debate of the Chinese free verse at the period was immense. That may constitute the starting point of the thesis.