The Mergence Of Constant And Change In Wen Yiduo's Modern Poetics

In the history of Chinese modern poetry, Wen Yiduo is known as a pioneer in the creation of metrical verse, and he made significant contributions to the modernization of Chinese poetry. Wen combined classical poetry theory with modern one, by which he found out a road of poetry art with a harmony of constancy and change.As a scholar in transitional period, Wen Yiduo was proficient not just in Chinese traditional literature, but also in modern literature. After intensive study, he established Chinese modern poetics through literature critique and reconstruction. Since now his poetic theory is still effective and acts as a reference frame of the development of Chinese modern poetry, it is fair to conclude that the cultural value of Wen's works is perspective, modern, and revealing. He successfully completed the shift of the traditional poetry to modern form, which possesses poetic value and modern meaning. In terms of poetic spirit, his spirit of freedom and democracy far surpasses that of Chinese ancients, by combining Chinese personality with modern spirit. In terms of poetic form, through inheriting the traditions of Chinese metrical verse and borrowing ideas from western techniques, he proposed the poem theory of "three beauties", namely the beauty of music, the beauty of paint, and the beauty of construction.Although Wen Yiduo was influenced by western imagism, romanticism, and estheticism, etc, he selected the essence while discarding the dross. By localizing the western artistic experience, Wen found abundant allopatric resources for the constant and change of Chinese poetry. As living in the pioneering period, Wen's opinion of the mixture of Chinese and Western culture was very complex. In one word, the study of Wen Yiduo is beneficial not only for our understanding of his academic achievements, but also our thoughts on the prosperous change of poetry based upon its constancy.