Poetry Revolution: The Modern Chinese Poems

Just like the literature in Late-Qing Dynasty's, the study on the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty is becoming more and more. But the research about the interior world from the main parts of poetry is still not enough. This paper will observe and study the main parts of poetry such as language, rhyme and tone, image and style to find the historic source and interior power and give prominence to the connection between the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty and the genesis of Chinese Modern Poetry.The Main parts refer to the form and feature of many aesthetic elements constructing the poetry, such as language, rhyme and tone, image and style, etc. All of them not only is the essential condition for the poetry, but also decides the poetic aesthetic feature and character. So it should be the key points to study. This paper will research and close-read the main parts of poetry in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty with the methods including Genesis, Culture Study, Modern Linguistics, Structuralism and Formalism and from the combination angle of Culture Study, history and aesthetics.There are many misunderstanding for people to define the intension and extension from the angle of the main parts of poetry. It displays that the Poetry with New Knowledge in Early Period is not a part of the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. The paper finds out the literature and historical value and takes it as the beginning of the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. And it also corrects the mistake to take the Revolution as Reformism, and then organize the whole development trace of the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty.Chapter 1 penetrates from the language which is the foundation of poetry. This part analyses the background and power for language to change in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. It points out the language changing is a part of the language revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. The pioneers in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty such as Liang Qichao, Huang Zunxian is similar with the early Modern poets in many ways: language is their common breakout to look for the poetry changing; the theory of evolution is the thinking weapon for both of them; and spoken language, dialect and loanword are their common changing tactics and aims. At first, Huang Zunxian put forward the proposal of Writing one's words with one's hand, which established the tactics to resist classical Chinese by spoken language. It is connect with the social background at that time, especially the Christian missionary to use and popularize spoken language. The poets in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty valued spoken language because of its vividness, popularity, lucidity, the convenience for communication and obvious principality. This is just corresponding to the birth of the thought of vernacular literature by Hu Shi.The dialect has its own characteristics which are different from spoken language: its edge status opposing the classical Chinese of main status, rebelling and resisting feature. Except these, the dialect can make the poetic language and easthetic world rich by its various local culture. The poetry written in dialect is not created by early vernacular poets including Hu Shi, Liu Bannong, Guo Moruo, etc. it was also used by the poets in 1980's. The contradiction and tension are the keys for dialect to continue forever.From the beginning of the poetry with new knowledge showing its difference by using new words, the poets in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty drew new words into poetry. And then Liang Qichao adjusted the aim of the poetic revolution, but new words can be kept in poetry. The intervention of new words is not only marking the appearance of a kind of new thought, but also touching off the main parts of poetry. The new words and sentences are more outstanding in modern poetry. Guo Moruo transplanted foreign words directly into poetry, and some other poets transformed foreign things into poetic images. Various style of language constructed by oral language, dialect and new words and sentences shakes the language foundation of conditional poetry, and ploughs the soil for modern poetry to breed and emerge, and points out the direction at the same time.Chapter 2 analyses the poetic sound and rhythm in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty breaking through the traditional poetry and creating. The sound is an inseparable part of language, and poetry depends on sound more strong than other literary styles as story, essay, etc. The difference between form of classical poetry and"modern style"poetry(which is also called lüshi)is based on the sound and rhythm. So the change of main parts of poetry must include the sound and rhythm. In fact, the creation in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty also resisted the regular and strict sound and rhythm rules of"modern style"poetry. Firstly, it must save the error-sounding if any word disobediences the regular and strict sound and rhythm rules of"modern style"poetry. But the poetry in Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty often disobeys the rules. And they broke through the limits between form of classical poetry and"modern style" poetry by using oblique tones. It disintegrated thoroughly the sound model of"modern style"poetry by violating the tone patterns in classical Chinese poetry. Even some poetry abandoned the broader sound rules of classical poetry and took new completely form out of classical poetry or"modern style"poetry. It is the beginning of new sound form, which forebodes the poetry in future will find the more free and broad sound form and develop toward free style poetry. And the phenomenon of stressing on classical poetry and despising lüshi appeared in Hu Shi's early poetry, and his later poetry abandoned completely the sound model of classical poetry or"modern style"poetry and carried forward the spirits of breaking through the traditional sound rules in Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty.Secondly, the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty also made a breakthrough from the traditional poetic rhythm. The poets used words with disyllable, three-syllable and more syllable and made the traditional poetic rhythm stopped. The way to rank and combine syllables also disobeyed the traditional rule, and the examples of the meaning unfit for sound group are very common. Except for these, some auxiliary words used in essay usually are absorbed into poetry that attacked the traditional poetic rhythm continually. There are double significances of change of poetic sound and rhythm in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty: it opened a new way to modern poetry with traditional pattern and rhyme and gave birth of modern poetry with free pattern and rhyme, too. And the two kinds of poetry co-exist and penetrate the whole history of Chinese modern poetry.Chapter 3 views from the angle of images in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. The image means the objective things conveying poet's feeling and ideas, which has tight relationship to the thinking way of traditional Chinese poets. The poetic images are another aim and form to change poetic parts in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. At first, many completely new things had being changed into images and enlarged the range of poetic images. At the same time, the indigenous things being conveyed fresh feeling and ideas also became new images. Second, the event being neglected for long time was taken as key images to express in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty. This is an expression of promotion of the poet's ability of rational analysis and induction, and advances the expressing way to be accurate and concrete. In addition, it had the force to reform the poetic sound and rhyme. So the fact that the event was taken as poetic image in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty, is an important symbol for poetry to change from the traditional pattern to modern free pattern. That has promotive power to the birth of modern poetry. Except for these, a lot of nouns meaning abstract idea were led into the poetry by the poets in the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty, which should press the space and the status of images in poetry. The appearance of abstract nouns does not influence only poetic sound and rhythm, antithesis formed by lines or sentences matched in sound and sense and style, but also forced the way and function of expressing to change from concrete to abstract. That hastened the birth of modern reasoning poetry.Chapter 4 mainly focuses on the structure and form of poetic style. The style is a kind of forms composing of language order, and the resultant and performance of feeling, experience, thinking, soul of author or critics, society, history, and culture. Being influenced by environment, poets'concept, mass media, language and other factor of poetry, the poetic style couldn't keep the structure and character of traditional poetry, and change is the only choice for it to live on.Firstly, the poets chose the style of folk rhyme that has fresh and vivid characters as resources and reference to ease the traditional rigid and obstinate style. And the appearance of folk rhyme can make the poetic style rich. Secondly, poets advocated and practice song-style poetry to renew the music nature of poetry. They took the style of GeXing and absorbed foreign music resources to create poetry with song-style to reform traditional poetic style and create new style by the moving power of music, the free style with beautiful melody. Thirdly, they adopted the tactics of"writing poetry in prose style"to lead poetry into a more free and broad space. There are many characters of poetry in prose style: function words, oral words and new words were written into poetry; the poetic model as antithesis, sound and rhyme was divorced from the traditional poetry further and further; and the poetic lines were consisted of shorter or longer sentences. That does not only renew the single and fixed poetic style, but also enlarges the expressing scope and enhances the expressing effects. And it is the manifestation of poets'subjective sense and spiritual structure. That does not provide the model for modern poetry, but also become the same way for modern poetic style.The main four factors consisting of literary activity as world, author, reader and works influenced and affect each other. The changes of world, author and the reader must influence on and shown by the poetic main parts. It is said that the change of poetic main parts is the most important indication and sign for modern poetry to be born and develop. Based on this, the significance of the Poetic Revolution in Late-Qing Dynasty is outstanding more and more.