A History Of Issues: The Musicality Of New Chinese Poetry (1917-1949)

Since the birth of modern Chinese poetry, the problem of so-called "musicality" has caused much trouble as well as many efforts, which formed a complex history about the problem. This dissertation will set the research period from 1917 to 1949. In order to make a clear discription of such a history, it is necessary for us to understand the three basic levels of poetic musicality:melodic musicality, lingual musicality, and generalized musicality.The history about the problem of poetic musicality in modern China can be divided into two periods:the embryonic period and the period of construction. Of course, like the general history of literature, such a history will also be affected by the external environment and the development of social history, therefore, any division can only be relative.The first half of this dissertation will examine the embryonic period of such a history. The embryonic period begins from February 1st,1917, when Hu Shi published his eight modern Chinese poems on the magazine New Youth, and in the year of 1922, it goes to an end. In the embryonic period, the prosody of classical Chinese poetry was given up by the poets, who worked hard to pursue a natural effect of lingual musicality.The second half of this dissertation will examine the period of construction. The period of construction starts from 1923, when Lu Zhiwei published Crossing the River, the collection of his poems. This period ends in 1949. In this period, the prosody or versification of modern Chinese poety became the focus of the poets'efforts.Through the poets'efforts of many different kinds in the embryonic periond and the period of construction, the tradition of poetic musicality in modern Chinese poetry got its sketch. Such a tradition will be inherited, subverted, and developed in the following years.