Self-practice Subject Poetics

During the period of Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War, facing the very urgent topic of the times that is how to improve the quality of poetry premised on the combination of the reality and the people, the July School of Poetry have devoted themselves in the quest of poetic theory actively, in addition to writing a number of contagious poems. They not only think about the essential characteristic of the poetry systematically, but also participate in the poetry debate actively, in which they express their views boldly on the topical issues of the content and form of poetry. This process results in the rudiment of a practical system of subject poetics. However, in the previous studies of the July Poetry or the July School, these poetic theories were often just used as grounds of argument, or at best as proof materials to demonstrate related issues. It is said that this is really a pity for the studies of the July School of poetry, even for the studies of the theory of modern Chinese poetry.This dissertation deliberately starts with the practical characteristic of the July School of poetry’s subject poetics. And based on the cultural contexts of the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War, it analyses the basic content of the theory of July School of poetry. From a modern perspective, the dissertation examines the value and limitation of the July School of poetry’s poetics, in the hope of providing a useful reference to its creation and research in the future.The dissertation consists of three parts, that is to say, introduction, body and conclusion. And the body of the dissertation is divided into four chapters.The Introduction puts forward the research object of this dissertation, gives a brief review of the July School of poetry’s poetics, introduces the recent research of the topic, and illustrates the aims of the research and the framework of this thesis.Chapter One mainly talks about the concept and the connotation of Practical Subject, and the possibility and reality of its theoretical connection with the theory of the July School of poetry. After that, this part analyzes the possibility of the theoretical linkage from four aspects, then explains the reality of the theoretical linkage from three aspects specifically, and concludes that it is feasible to adopt the Practical Subject as the theoretical perspective and theoretical basis of this dissertation.Chapter Two mainly discusses the July School of Poetry’s understanding of the essential characteristic of poetry:their thinking is closely related to the subject’s Emotional Factor:from the perspective of Mind-substance Relation Theory, the intrinsic motivation for the subject embracing the object is the Emotional Factor; from the perspective of Poet as Subject Theory, the Emotional Factor is treated as the essential attribute of poetry instead of Reason factor, and Persuasive Power must be converted into the Moving Power; from the perspective of the Poetry Function Theory, the essence of poetry is to realize the communication between the individual and the group through the emotional resonance.Chapter Three reveals the July School of Poetry’s understanding of the content of poetry from three aspects, namely politics, enlightenment and philosophy:the political aspect of poetry refers to the reality, history, sociality and the humanity of poetry, so the relationship between poetry and politics is actually the relationship between poetry and the real life, while its poetic interpretation is contained in Hu Feng’s proposition, the First Meaning of The Poet; the July Poetry’s Enlightenment is a kind of Collective Enlightenment and its core is Marx’s philosophical concept, Practical Subject, and the program for its poetic transformation is called Creative Melting Pot Theory; the July School of Poetry are not opposed to the philosophical aspect of poetry, so they not only describe people’s life experience in the context of war in their poems deeply, but also engage in a fierce battle of poetic theory against the negative tendencies at the time by focusing on the relationship between man and nature in the poem.The main purpose of Chapter Four is to explain the July School of Poetry’s unique understanding of the form of poem:their basic starting point is Employing New Form to Reflect New Content. They advocate the prose’s beauty of the free verse, which is called the Powerful Arrangement. They think that what the poetry needs is the Image Power instead of Visualization. To be contagious, the poetic language must be full of emotion and thought. In short, in order to make the poem obtain a real Fighting Capacity, the July School of Poetry denies any kind of formalism.The main content of Conclusion is to expound the value and limitation of the poetic theory of the July School of Poetry:it is a more comprehensive summary and enhance for the revolutionary poetry theory in the1940s and it is an important support for the poetry reconstruction since the New Era and its useful enlightenment for the contemporary poetry is the pursuit for and persistence in the Poet’s Role. the underlying cause of limitation of the July School of Poetry is the War Culture Psychology.