The May 4th Movement of 1919 is an important event in the history of Chinese literature. This was a strong protest of Chinese intellectuals against foreign imperialism in general and against the pro-Japanese provisions of the Treaty of Versailles in particular. It also was a revolt against the inefficiency and corruption that made up the legacy of the Manchus. Linguistically, the movement was a challenge to classical Chinese, a nearly dead language reserved for men of letters and of which the common people were ignorant.
The awakening of national consciousness assured the victory of the Movement. The way had already been prepared by the introduction of Western ideas into China through the translation of European literary and political works in the late 19th century. Dr. Hu Shih, the initiator of the Movement, published his first manifesto in favor of the spoken language in New Youth in 1917. The Ministry of Education ordered the teaching of the spoken language in primary schools in 1920 and the battle for linguistic reform was won.
A new Chinese poetry was born when the spoken language was adopted for literature. This was the first revolution in Chinese poetry. The second took place after the Chinese Communists usurped mainland power in 1949.
The three constituents of classical Chinese verse are meter, rhyme-scheme and tone-pattern. Traditional verses are always of regular meter, in either five or seven syllables. Rhyme occurs in the even-numbered lines, rhyming at the end of the first line being optional. Chinese being a tonal language, each character has either an "even" or "inflected" tone. Even-toned and inflected-toned characters have their proper places in each line and follow strict rules.
New Chinese poetry shakes off all the chains imposed by traditional prosodical rules and borrows Western meter. We can distinguish three stages in the course of the new poetry's development.
The first period was that of free verse. Chinese poets were happy about liberation from traditions that had endured for thousands of years. They rejected all rules of versification and were of the opinion that poetic inspiration should know no restraint. Their verses were rhymeless and irregular in meter. This was a period of total emancipation. Kuo Mo-jo, a vigorous and rebellious poet, and Ping Hsin, a purely lyric poetess, belonged to this school. Taiwan poets of today have gone back to free verse.
The second period was that of new poetic form. As a reaction against poetic anarchy, the review New Moon, born in 1928, concerned itself with the creation of a new poetic form. The best representatives of this school were Hsu Chih-mo, a lyric poet, and Wen Yi-to, who was at once as suggestive as the classical Chinese poets, as sensitive as the Western romantic poets, all objective as the Parnassians and as poignant as the realists. The representatives of this school suggested that the search for rhyme is sometimes most successful in happy discovery and that inspiration is sometimes born of premeditated restraint. Hsu Chih-mo introducep English meters and Feng Chih became a master of sonnets. As for Wen Yi-to, he affirmed that rules are required in all arts and that after having rejected the limited and monotonous ancient poetic forms, it was necessary to create new poetic forms varying according to the substance. He developed the theory that poetry should have musical harmony, pictorial eloquence and architectural structure. He said the poet could find himself by submitting to difficult rules.
The third period was that of folksongs. After the advent of the Chinese Communist regime, which rejected classical meter, free verse and borrowed Western meter, Chinese poets on the mainland adopted the form of the popular song but in spoken style. Folksongs are usually pentametrical or heptametrical but have no fixed tone-pattern.
Modern Chinese poetry differs from the traditional in language. The elliptical structure of the classical Chinese language, a sort of telegraphic style, conferred upon traditional poetry a conciseness that modern poetry ignores.
Traditional and modern poets also differ in their way of expressing themselves. The classical poet stripped his writing of all unnecessary details of description and of all burdens of confused thought. The essential concept was left unsaid. The classical Chinese poet, contrary to the Parnassians, was not a painter of reality but the interpreter of a state of mind. The modern poet, inspired by Western romantic eloquence, goes into a thousand details.
Classical Chinese poetry was purely Chinese while new Chinese poetry includes both native and foreign elements. The modern poet turns to native sources with a new point of view and transplants what he finds in the Western world.
While the traditional Chinese poet sought for erudition, the modern poet searches for originality. To classical Chinese poets, the dictionary of rhymes was not only a book in which to find rhymes but also an encyclopedia of images and prefabricated expressions which every poet had the right to use. The modern poet tries to invent original images and expressions.
Closely associated with daily life, classical Chinese poetry was always limited to the sentimental and social aspects of life or to scenery. It almost always excluded the intellectual and the metaphysical. Even a love poem was only a description of feminine beauty, the sorrow of separation or the narration of a love story. The contemporary Chinese poet finds more varied inspiration and inclines toward abstraction.
Classical Chinese poetry was profoundly influenced by the three principal currents of Oriental thought: Confucian morality, Taoist naturalism and mysticism and Buddhist annihilism.
To Confucius, who taught rites and good manners; who encouraged moderation; who exalted humanism, social harmony and civic virtues; who distinguished good from evil and the superior from the ordinary man, classical Chinese poetry owed its practical, utilitarian, reasonable, moralizing and social character.
To Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, who preached non-action; who taught a calm and detached attitude toward life and its vanities; who invited a return to nature, we attribute the transcendental, mystic and dreamy character of Chinese idyllic poetry as well as its constant concern to contrast the vain and ephemeral character of all temporal things with the permanence of infinite nature.
To Buddhism, life is suffering: the suffering of birth, that of old age, of sickness, of death. In the eyes of a Buddhist, human beings are victims of envy, of anger, of passion, of desire. Earthly pleasures are fugitive. Sounds, colors, perfumes and tastes fill this world with illusion. Consequently, it is necessary to stifle desire, which is the source of all suffering, in order to gain Nirvana, which is the extinction of life and the act of rebirth.
The modern Chinese poet pays less attention to the social character of poetry. He is moved to write chiefly by a personal idea, a personal experience or a personal sentiment instead of regarding poetry as social comment. His love poetry is no longer limited to the outward appearance of the beloved or the expression of longing. His love poems are more platonic than sensual, less moderate in expression and more profound in sentiment. The modern Chinese poet also sings abundantly of nature but his idyllic poetry, instead of being an invitation to philosophical or religious contemplation, is a pretext to exalt his "self" or to call forth poetic associations.
At the beginning of the poetic revolution, that is between 1917 and 1921, anti-feudalism and the new life constituted the principal themes of poetry. Among the early poets using the spoken style were K'ang Pai-ch'ing, who excelled in depicting the life of peasants and artisans; Kuo Mo-jo, whose themes were of urban life, hope and the future; and Liu Ta-Pai.
March, 1928, is an important period in the history of the new poetry. The review New Moon was established to promote romanticism. Hsu Chih-mo, a singer of love and nature, was the leader of this school.
Another remarkable new poet was Wen Yi-to. Differing from Hsu Chih-mo, who was purely lyric, Wen Yi-to changed with the times. In the period when he collaborated with New Moon he maintained that poetry should have plastic beauty, musical sonority and architectural form. He was then considered an esthetic poet. Later the horrors of civil war invited him to quit his ivory tower. He rejected his former theories and attached more importance to subject matter so as to criticize society and awaken his fellow-countrymen.
The year 1932 witnessed the birth of the Contemporary School and the Contemporary Review. Influenced by French symbolists, the poets of this school rejected romantic effusions and the simplicity of language.
According to Li Chin-fa, the ancestor of Chinese symbolism, the purpose of poetry is to express meaning through allusion and not to display sentiment in an effusive and obvious manner. He revolutionized syntax by employing the ellipsis, audacious comparisons and unusual images to suggest ideas and sensations. He also started the style of mingling literary Chinese with spoken Chinese so that modern poetic language would be more concise and less trite.
Tai Wang-shu also belonged to this school but his language was simpler and his imagination less rich than Li Chin-fa's. To him, poetry represents a dream world. Its purpose is at once to express and disguise. It lies between the real and the imaginary.
Other members of this school were Feng Chih, a great admirer of Rilke, who excelled in depicting inanimate objects as witnesses of past and present and as spectators of the future; Pien Chih-ling, noted for obscurity of language; Wang Tu-ch'ing, a painter of urban life and the ruins of the past; and Yao P'eng-tzu, an admirer of Schopenhauer, whose poetry expresses above all the deceptions of an anguished soul.
Ai Ch'ing belongs to the realistic school. His poetry is characterized by sobriety of language and vigor of style. A popular poet, he is inclined to depict the misery of the poor. A close observer of nature, he describes with remarkable detail the wilderness of North China veiled by a layer of melancholic mist unique to a region where the wind blows laden with yellow dust.
The Association of Poems and Songs was founded in 1932 following the Mukden Incident that heralded the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Its founders - Yang Sao, P'u Feng and Mu Mu-t'ien - soon declared that poetry should be the mirror of events. Sino-Japanese hostilities broke out in 1937 and Chinese poetry written during the torment of war was naturally endowed with a patriotic and militant character.
Among the intellectuals who reached Taiwan were a number of poets who can be roughly divided into two groups: the Blue Star Poetic Society and the Epoch Making Poetic Association. The former was chiefly influenced by Western romanticism or symbolism but retains aspects of the national spirit, while the latter is inclined toward modernism and seeks to distinguish itself by obscurity and eccentricity of expression.
The poets of Taiwan made notable progress. Generally speaking, they renovated the poetic language and widened the field of inspiration. This is the case in the writings of Ch'in Tzu-hao, a master of language; Yu Kuang-chung, a versatile poet of varied inspiration; Lo Men, an esthetic poet of rich imagination; Ya Hsuan, noted for poetic atmosphere; Hsiung Hung, whose poetry is characterized by ethereal beauty; Cheng Ch'ou-yu, elegant of language and endowed with great sensibility; and Hu P'in-ch'ing, a lyric poet characterized by simplicity of language, freshness of imagery and profundity.
On the mainland Mao Tse-tung affirmed that literature should serve the peasant, the proletarian class and the soldier. The Communist regime has demanded a poetry to serve Mao and his ideological goals. The inspiration of mainland poets is very limited. Themes are impersonal and imposed by the Party to meet the needs of the moment. Language approaches triteness and vulgarity.
Communist poetry has entered the factories and the communes. Members of the working class write poetry and their work has received recognition.
The new Chinese poetry still seeks to find its own way. National in spirit, it has been strongly influenced by Western verse in form and above all in syntax. This new literary form marks the rebirth of a 4,000-year-old traditional poetry that reached a point where it was incapable of further change. The last word about the new poems is yet to be written.