Modern Chinese Poetry

Abstract

Accompanying China’s tumultuous modern history (conventionally demarcated from the era of the first Opium War, 1840–1842), modern Chinese literature experienced a dramatic revamping in both content and form in response to the projects of revolution, modern nation-state building, and modernization, in the context of colonialism and a multifaceted Western cultural and technological influence. Among multifarious literary genres, modern Chinese poetry has customarily been understood as New Poetry (xinshi新詩) or vernacular poetry (baihua shi白話詩), in conjunction with the May Fourth New Culture Movement (1915–1925), which denounced the traditional literary forms and their associated values, seeking to replace them with a modern vernacular language with its transparent and colloquial qualities. Hu Shi 胡適 famously declared a “literary revolution” (wenxue geming文學革命), especially in poetic forms, calling for “the shattering of the shackles” and an emancipation of poetic forms from traditional formal regulations. The vernacular language movement had a long-lasting impact on the formation of national language, rhetoric, ideology, and specifically, the definition of poetry and poetic values. To be modern, frequently understood as equivalent to being radically new, is also an ideological battlefield, loaded with value judgments and especially entwined with conceptions of literary modernity in contemporary discussions. Modernity in literature should not be understood as a subscription to the linear trajectory of evolution toward New Literature (Xin wenxue新文學) coupled with the decline or death of classical literature (Jiu wenxue舊文學). Rather, a variety of newness—revealed in content and style, responding to or interacting with political, cultural, and technological fronts and their dynamism, and negotiation with China’s literary tradition and with foreign translations—are all present and intertwined in both old and new poetry in the modern era. Modern Chinese Poetry, in this article, refers to the poetic genres (both in classical/old styles and new/vernacular poetry), written during the period from the late Qing era to the present moment. In other words, being “modern” here refers to historical periods (for the sake of convenience) and the contested values of newness in content or form. While classical-style poetry writing remained a major form and continued to evolve through the twentieth century, New Poetry quickly established itself as an excitingly fresh literary genre, garnering an enthusiastic, though limited, readership among the younger generation. In its constant negotiations with the literary tradition and foreign influences (from poetry schools to a range of world poets), and the articulations of either individualistic or collectivistic feelings, New Poetry in its different historical periods and regions—in particular Republican China, postwar Taiwan, China in the market reform era, and the contemporary Sinophone world—significantly enriched and diversified its thematic and formal capacities. Over a century of evolutions, New Poetry has achieved its independent standing as a significant literary genre and formulated a genealogy of canonical and popular works. While competing with the glory of classical poetry and the revered works of the national canon, New Poetry has also considerably expanded its domestic and international audiences, thereby inserting its social and cultural impact.