| The Symbolist Movement in Modern Chinese poetry began with the acquaintance of Sheng Cheng and Liang Zongdai with Paul Valery. While knowledge of European Symbolism first entered China through the accounts of such critics as Kuriyagawa Hakuson, the first Chinese Symbolist poem did not appear until the publication of Liang's "Disappointment" in the January, 1922 issue of Fiction Monthly. Subsequently, Ginffa Lee established his reputation as the "father" of the Symbolist school with three volumes of collected poetry. Later poets were unable to imitate his work's opacity and associative power. Lee had departed from China following the May Fourth movement to study sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris and in Berlin. He later returned with his German wife to teach and in 1929 to found the journal Meiyu "Arts Education".;Virtually none of these poets produced further Symbolist works following the demise of "Les Contemporains" in 1934, and only Dai's poetry remained popular. Yet the movement's effect can be discerned in the works of such mid-thirties writers as Bian Zhilin and He Qifang, as the source of the surrealist poetry that emerged on Taiwan two decades later, and even on the Mainland in certain genres.;Following the publication of Lee's collection Light Rain in 1925, three expatriate Chinese writers, Wang Duqing, Mu Mutian and Feng Naichao, returned to head the Creation Society in place of Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu. The second, or "Creation" phase of Symbolism was a stage in the development of each of these three writers. Wang is noted for his sense of rhythm, Mu for his echoic effects in verse, and Feng for his vivid use of juxtaposed images. The journal Xiandai, founded in 1932 under the French title "Les Contemporains", served as the forum for the final "Modernist" phase of Symbolism. Under the leadership of Dai Wangshu, who had already captivated the reading public with the impressionist poem "The Rain Alley", the Shanghai Modernists linked Chinese and contemporary world literature through their translated stories and Symbolist poetry. |
