A Study Of Li Jinfa's Poetics

Li Jinfa has been hailed as "the founder of the modern Chinese symbolist poetry".His poetry was deeply influenced by the French symbolist poetry and displays the characteristics of peculiar imagination and hazy artistic conception,full of gloomy and blurred atmosphere,which has successfully laid the foundations of the Chinese modern symbolist poetry with its unique artistic style and charming language.Li Jinfa's poetics has the characteristics of modernism in advance of his age,and thus became the starting point of the Chinese modern symbolist poetics and promoted the rise of the Chinese modern poetical aesthetics.The study of Li Jinfa's poetics is of great significance for a thorough understanding of Li Jinfa's poetical creativity and the origins and development of the Chinese modern symbolist poetry as well.As Li Jinfa's poetics and his symbolist poetry style are greatly alienated from the mainstream culture since the May Fourth Movement,the research on Li Jinfa's poetics only seldom can be found within the academic literature.This paper makes a thorough and deep analysis of Li Jinfa's poetics focusing on three main aspects:the essence of poetry,the view of poetical creation,the idea of "individual spirit" of a poet.In the first part of this paper,the essence of Li Jinfa's poetry view is discussed in view of the influence on Li Jinfa by Baudelaire,Mallarme and Verlaine and others.In conclusion of Li Jinfa's definition of poetry and the related exposition in his The Origin of Art and Its Destiny and other articles,Li Jinfa's understanding of the essence of poetry is mainly reflected in two aspects:the core of poetry and the ideal form of poetry.As far as the core of poetry is concerned,Li Jinfa puts forward an idea that poetry expresses "instant images" in the form of "beto autiful words",and believes that poetry can express "what ordinary people are unable say".As to the ideal form of poetry,Li Jinfa strives to create a "fantasy of dream and beauty".Li Jinfa paid much attention to the obscurity of poetic imagery and the mysterious style of poetry as a whole.He argued that the words should be closely related to the inner experience of the soul,and that poetry should be endowed with symbolic,suggestive and other aesthetic features.Li Jinfa's understanding of the essence of poetry largely incorporated Baudelaire's unique understanding of poetry.Li Jinfa's poetics is a correction of and a rebellion against the new poetry since the May Fourth which for him were too straightforward and overly superficial,lacking in poetical content and showing a tendency towards the almost aristocratic Modernism.The second part of this paper focuses on Li Jinfa's views on poetical creativity.In the articles such as Fire and Poetry-Question and Answer,Li Jinfa advocated the idea of "art first" and opposed it to the utilitarian tendency within the arts.As for the artistic pursuit of poetry,Li Jinfa paid attention to the "purity" and "nobility" of poetry.As concerns the object of poetic expression,Li Jinfa stresses that poetry should celebrate the "beauty of women" and the "beauty of nature",and suggests that humanistic values be transmitted within poetry.As for the innovation in the poetical language.Li Jinfa believes that poetry is a "crystal" emerging from language and word training.Li Jinfa proposes the fusion of Chinese and Western languages,and continues to add regional dialects,English vocabulary and classical Chinese in his practice of poetical creation.The third part of this paper discusses Li Jinfa's "theory of individual spirit",i.e.the question of how poetry expresses the personality of poets.Li Jinfa emphasizes the individual expression of emotions,and expects to "glorify life with poetry".Li Jinfa and his good friend Lin Fengmian were both artistic masters attracted to modernism,and they also believed that art is of aesthetic value beyond practical utility.Li Jinfa and Lin Fengmian have rather interlinked artistic ideas and creation techniques.Like Lin Fengmian's paintings,Li Jinfa's "theory of individual spirit" contains a strong humanitarian flavor.Based on the above three aspects,the poetics of Li Jinfa displays obvious modernistic characteristics.Its original aesthetic concept,especially the artistic spirit insisting on individuality and pursuing independent aesthetics in poetry,is of great value that should not be ignored.