In 1997, the publication of "Southwest United University Modern Poetry Banknote" helped poetry lovers and scholars to recognize the existence of the "Southwest United University Poetry Group", promoted the reading and research of these poets, and even played a non-negligible role in promoting the "Southwest United University" to become a cultural hotspot. More than twenty years later, times have changed, and the republishment of the book will arouse the memories of this poetry collection by editors, poetry writers and researchers, and what kind of new feelings will be felt by the Southwest United Congress and modern Chinese poetry? At the book sharing meeting, editor Zhang Tongdao, together with poets Zang Di, Xidu and Jiang Tao, shared their thoughts on the history and current value of this "Poetry Banknote".
This article is from B04-B05 of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's February 25 feature "Southwest United Congress and Modern Chinese Poetry".
"Theme" B01丨 Southwest United University and Modern Chinese Poetry
"Theme" B02-B03 | "Southwest United University Modern Poetry Banknote" A book with a famous school and a poetry school
"Theme" B04-B05 丨 "Southwest United Poetry Crowd" wrote the vitality of modern Chinese poetry
"Literature" B06 | Look for the truth of human nature in "Provence"
"Social Science" B07丨 Interview with Francis Fukuyama: Will the epidemic accelerate the fading of the wave of globalization?
"Art" B08 | Love Through Cinema: A History of French FanFilm Culture in the Twenty Years After The War
Organize | Zhang Jin
01
The Southwest United Congress has left a spirit of exploration
Zhang Tongdao (Editor, Professor, School of Arts and Media, Beijing Normal University)
The main editor of "Southwest United University Modern Poetry Banknote" is Mr. Du Yunxie. At that time, Mr. Du was close to eighty years old, and he was in his seventies when we planned. At that time, we were thinking about how to leave some archives, some materials, for such a group of old poets who were about to leave us. Most of them were Du Lao's classmates or teachers of Southwest United University at that time, or alumni of the previous and lower classes. All the planning, liaison, and selection principles are done by Du Lao. But he was older, it was inconvenient for him to move, and I did all the errands, looking for people, looking for poetry manuscripts, looking for some newspaper clippings. At that time, many materials could not be found in the general library, mainly in the (last century) in the Southwest United University in the 40s, so I went to Kunming for this purpose. At that time, we did our best, but we didn't find it, but fortunately, we found these old poets that we could find at that time (many of them are actually no longer there, all through their families) and collected the material.
For me, the greatest significance of this collection is to gradually restore the historical appearance, let us know that in the war-torn 40s, in Kunming, there was such a group of intellectuals who explored art, explored the aesthetics of poetry and the culture of the Chinese nation, and these poems are still very valuable after half a century, from the perspective of our editors at that time.
In fact, it has been more than twenty years since the compilation was completed, and the poetry of Southwest United University has received more and more attention, and now more people are studying it... Everyone gradually learned more about the Southwest United Congress. You may notice that there is a recent documentary film called "After 90", which is very well filmed, that is, the Southwest United University, but unfortunately, many old people are no longer there when filming. Such a spirit of exploration left by the Southwest United Congress, this sincere expression, this kind of exploration (effort) to explore the development of art between Chinese and Western cultures, (including) a very in-depth discussion of the current psychology of the Chinese nation, these are all valuable today.
Stills from the documentary "Southwest United Congress". Young poets gathered to discuss poetry.
02
Use poetry to respond to the experience of the times
Xidu (Poet, Professor, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University)
Teacher Zhang Tongdao and the old poet Du Yunxie did very important discovery work in the context of the 1990s. The poetic achievements of the 1940s were hardly understood by ordinary readers for a long time, because many of their poets lost the opportunity to publish their works in the fifties and sixties and 1970s, and many of them rarely published works later. So the publication of this book of poems really refreshed our understanding of the poetry of the 40s at that time, and when we discussed the poetry of the 40s, we quoted a lot of the poems in this book. The new version is now more complete than the original, and the number of articles has been increased. Bian Zhilin originally (collected) 17 songs, and now has collected the "Collection of Consolation Letters". The new version also did some revision work and became more classic.
The reason why the Southwest United University appeared, such a large number of excellent modern poetry writers gathered in one school, had a very big relationship with the special environment of the wartime at that time. After the merger of Peking University, Nankai University and Tsinghua University, a number of important poets in the history of new poetry have been concentrated on the campus of Southwest United University, all of whom hold teaching positions at Southwest United University. In the book, Wen Yiduo, Bian Zhilin, Shen Congwen, Feng Zhi, etc. are selected, in fact, there are some, Zhu Ziqing, Sun Yutang, chen Mengjia are also in the Southwest United University, all writing new poems. Therefore, in the Southwest United University, a strong poetic atmosphere that was originally a single one that was unlikely to be formed in Tsinghua, Peking University, and Nankai was formed. The Southwest United University gathered important poets at all stages of the new poems in the teaching team. Including Yan Busun, there is another British poet, Bai Ying, who brought the most contemporary style of British poetry to the campus of Southwest United University.
Before we accepted the influence of foreign poetry there was a time lag. Due to the teaching staff of Southwest United University, students have long been exposed to the most active poets of our time, such as Auden at that time, including Yan Busun himself. Bai Ying edited the Selected Poems of Contemporary China at that time, as well as the Selected Poems of Ancient and Modern China. Many teachers and students of Southwest United University, including Yu Mingchuan and Wen Yiduo, participated in this work, which also had a very beneficial impact on promoting the poetic atmosphere of Southwest United University. Both from the perspective of the teacher and the student, the poetry atmosphere is very active. Including the literary societies at that time, there were many literary societies in the Southwest United University, and Mu Dan participated from the Nanhu Poetry Society to the Wenju to the Holly Society. There are instructors in the poetry club, Zhu Ziqing, Wen Yiduo, Shen Congwen, Li Guangtian, etc. have all served, and the relationship between the instructors and the students is also very close, they will go to the poetry club to give speeches, and they will have direct exchanges with the students. Southwest United University does have a special condition and atmosphere that makes the poetry atmosphere particularly active in such a temporary university.
The poetry of the 40s has a symmetry with the poetry of the 90s to some extent. In the 1940s, faced with the special historical situation of the War of Resistance, poets and history also had an encounter in the 90s, and poets had to face new experiences. Faced with such a situation, [the poets] had to renew their previous poetic consciousness, including technical means. The poetry of the 80s may have some symmetry with the poetry of the 30s, and the obscure poetry of the 80s is more of a symbolic poetic style, the transformation of the 80s to the 90s, and the transformation of the 30s to the 40s. Of course, this transformation did not break out in the War of Resistance, the transformation began, and the process of transformation began even earlier. For example, Ye Gongchao was the first to introduce the concepts and works of poets such as Eliot to China. Zhao Ruihong's translation of "Wasteland" is the work done under the guidance of Ye Gongchao. The spread of "Wasteland" in the Chinese translation circle also had a great effect on the renewal of poetry consciousness at that time, and began to stimulate the poets at that time. Coupled with the special historical situation of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the process of (transformation) was accelerated. This generation of poets was fortunate in some ways, and unfortunate in a way, and for a long time afterwards their efforts to transform or ascend were not recognized, not even basic cognition. So we now re-read the works of the poets of the 40s to see how they responded to the experience of the times with poetry in special historical situations, which is still revealing to our current writing.
03
Modernity in this generation of poets
Zang Di (Poet, Researcher, Institute of Chinese Poetry, Peking University)
The book "Southwest United University Modern Poetry Banknote" can be called a poetry collection, or it can be called a poetry anthology, and it can be placed in the history of new poetry for a hundred years, and I think it can be placed within the first ten books, which has a landmark nature.
Modern Chinese poetry writes that in the 1940s, there was a new blood color of life or the breath of life radiating in such a grim era. For example, in Mu Dan's poems, there is a kind of vigor, sensitivity, sharpness, and a kind of righteousness, combined with the experience of life, and then combined with the unique sensitivity of their new generation of poets to modern Chinese. This combination was placed in the context of the previous 30s and 20s, and the vitality and creativity of poetry were difficult to stimulate. When I did my research, I had a feeling that there really was such a generation of poets, with the enthusiasm for life, the rare life force, combined with modern Chinese, and combined with the vocabulary in the context of that era, to present a new look of new poetry.
How to summarize this new face and how to name it may be divided in the academic context of modern poetic history. For example, we called it the modernization of new poetry at that time, or the pursuit of new poetry modernity. In the context of the 1940s, this is a very positive image, or this is a pursuit with a change in aesthetic direction, as Mr. Yuan Kejia lamented at that time, as if there was really a kind of poetic sensibility revolution in the poetic writing practice of this generation of poets. But this academic question diverged after the 1990s, that is, how to evaluate the pursuit of modernization by this generation of poets. Some contemporary poets of great importance refer to Mudan's writing as "pseudo-Auden". I recently read Zhang Songjin's evaluation, (I think) that the vitality of the new poetry displayed by the poets in the 40s at that time now seems to be nothing more than a reference to Western poetry, and even an aesthetic shift, as if it has not departed from the imitation of the trap, has not yet found the foundation of Chinese poetry, or there is a separation from tradition, in the unformed European state.
My skepticism about the '40s from today is resistant. Mu Dan, Du Yunxie, and Mr. Zheng Min, including Wang Zuoliang and Yang Zhouhan, said that their writing was only a simple and wonderful imitation of Western modernism or modern aesthetics, losing the texture of Chinese poetry and not finding the true charm of Chinese poetry. I am in a more sympathetic understanding.
Mudan's manuscript Winter (partial).
How to evaluate the modernity of this generation of poets, especially from today's point of view to look back, we sometimes do not experience the difficulty of that generation of poets' pursuit of new poetic modernity. Because we have more resources today, it seems that we can have a clearer positioning, and this positioning sometimes makes us (with) a little contemptuous eyes. But we really have to take a deep look at the texts of that generation of poets. In the context of many restrictions at that time, such as the limitations of materials and literary information, I admired them so keenly to find a context between the changes in traditional and modern languages and between the changes in Chinese.
There is a central topic in the modernity of their new poetry, that is, where the pursuit of new poetic modernity ends. This may involve understanding the relationship between the language of the new poem and prose culture. A more important foothold in the modernization of new poetry is the prose culture of new poetry. In the 1940s, critics of new poetry like Zhu Ziqing already used the term "prose culture of new poetry." Shen Congwen also said at that time that the modernization of new poetry should go forward, and he used a word called "novelization of new poetry." Novelization is synonymous with prose culture. In the past, [poets] always processed the scene of poetry into a kind of artistic conception, using the artistic conception to transform the ancient, paying tribute to classical Chinese poetry, which is not wrong, we use Chinese, no matter which era is written, it must be a tribute to the artistic conception in the Chinese poetic tradition. The most valuable thing about the poetic practice displayed by this generation of poets is that they have opened up the consciousness of the new Chinese poetry scene. The biggest difference between the new poems and the ancient poems that Wen Yiduo talked about was one word- moving, and when Bian Zhilin began to talk about drama, the scene of the poem had a dramatic situation. Yuan Kejia also said at that time that modernization contains a very important aspect, that is, the dramatization of new poetry. Their poetry writes out their own generation of vitality as poets, but also writes the vitality of modern Chinese poetry, and more importantly, they use a mixed style, or in their own words, the comprehensive style, not so pure language, contains the absorption of modern prose, but also contains (breaking) the boundaries of poetic prose, which is a very conscious confusion. This mixture itself also makes the poetic style of modern Chinese poetry more inclusive, and this inclusiveness can respond to more complex experiences of the times.
Yuan Kejia.
I did my PhD thesis from 1993 to 1996. At that time, after reading Mudan's poems, I suddenly felt that Mudan's writing had a pattern, and he wanted to write each poem into a small drama. This touched me a lot at the time, and I felt that I had thought too little of the situation of poetry before. To track the sensibility of the poetry they used at that time, Yuan Kejia used a word at that time, called the maximum consciousness activity (maximum consciousness). In the past, poets said that they should write about emotions, such as poets in the 20s, like Guo Moruo and Mu Mutian, they all said that poetry comes from emotions or feelings, like the very subtle feeling that Dai Wangshu wrote "Rain Alley". But you suddenly see the poets of Mudan's generation, who use the breath of life, the consciousness of life, the courage of life when facing the complexity of the times. As a modern person based on modern personality, he has a conscious and sober modern consciousness of that era. In the past, our writing was based on emotion, starting from emotion and returning to emotion, but Mudan's poetry starts from the consciousness of modern people, balances the distance between the individual and the era with consciousness, (thinking) how to compress it, or how to make a new combination. This is the most fundamental change in Chinese new poetry writing.
04
Relatively complete literary ecology
Jiang Tao (Poet, Professor, Department of Chinese, Peking University)
When the first edition of the book was published in 1997, I bought it for the first time, and it was really eye-opening after reading it, and for the first time I learned about such a poetry community in a relatively complete way. There are many poets who know for the first time, and it is Yu Mingchuan who is deeply impressed. Yu Mingchuan's poems are written a lot, and they are really well written, and they are compelling. At that time, the quality of his writing was not below Yuan Kejia, or even higher, if you want to rank, Mu Dan is the best, he can rank second. This collection is indeed a milestone.
After this collection of poems came out, it was particularly good to put the writing of so many young poets in the (last century) 40s in such a space as the Southwest United University to discuss and present. In particular, there is an afterword at the back of the collection of teachers in the same way, and the title is very meaningful, "Alarm, TeaHouse and Campus Poetry", in fact, in addition to poetry, it also talks about the cultural ecology and educational ecology around the poetry, including the state of kunming urban survival. This is precisely a change in the mid-to-late 90s when we do modern literary research, before we were more literary content, such as talking about writers, genres, and concepts, but in the 90s, more and more emphasis was placed on literature in specific historical contexts and historical contexts, discussing the relationship between specific people, his relationship with politics and society, which I think reflected the potential change in research thinking at that time.
If we read this collection carefully, we can read a lot of interesting and very vivid links, which can give us a better understanding of the basic background of the poets' writing at that time, including their mentality. For example, Mr. Zhao Ruihong has a relatively long poem, "Spring 1940: A Portrait of Kunming", which I think is very important. The way this poem is written is a bit like what Zang Di said about novelizing and dramatically writing new poems. Writing about a group of students running alarms and dodging bombing in the suburbs during the bombing, how they chatted, how they talked, how they painted landscapes, how they read books, was written in a completely novelized way, writing a dynamic continuous picture of life, and also quoting many classic passages of Western literature that they were familiar with at the time. And this is the way Mudan often used it from 1939 to 1942, the way he learned it from Eliot and Yeats. For example, Mu Dan has a very famous poem "Lyric Poem in an Air Raid Shelter", which is also written to hide from the alarm and drill the cave. If you refer to "Spring 1940: A Portrait of Kunming" with Mu Dan's writing, you can see the dialogue relationship. Zhao Ruihong's poem was given to Mu Dan, but looking at mr. Zhao Ruihong's poem later, it was not written in this way, but in a relatively lyrical way, not a dramatic way.
Zhao Ruihong.
I privately guessed that Zhao Ruihong wanted to compete with Mu Dan a little, saying that Mu Dan you have written so many poems, I also write, I write better than you. I think Zhao Ruihong's writing is more comfortable, fuller and more complete. And Mu Dan had a lot of energy in his body at that time, and he couldn't digest it himself, so the novelized and dramatic poems he wrote at that stage were basically relatively complicated and messy, so he had high quality, but the breath was not smooth, but Mr. Zhao Ruihong's poem was very smooth. It is not to say which poem is good, but to be able to see the state of communication between young poets at that time and compete with each other. Maybe they all have similar reading resources, such as familiar with the poems of Eliot and Yeats, and they also know each other's writings, so that we can really return to the scene of history. This is a poem that seems to be very microscopic, but I think it is very important.
Literary Activities in the Historical Context of Southwest United University, by Yao Dan, Edition: Guangxi Normal University Press, May 2000
Indeed, the modernist poetry trend in China in the 1940s reached a very high level, and it was its period of expansion and maturity, including Mu Dan, Zheng Min, and Du Yunxie. In fact, at that time, the Southwest United University not only had a great influence on modernist poetry, but also some other poetry genres that emerged during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression also had echoes on campus. For example, in Ai Qing's poetry, the poet that Mu Dan most admired at that time was Ai Qing. For example, the poetry of the field, Wen Yiduo, who has talked about the field and Ai Qing's poems at the United Nations General Assembly, caused a great stir among the students. So in the mid-to-late 1940s, there were also some attempts at left-wing poetry and realist poetry among the poets of the United Nations Congress, including poetry about combat action.
This collection is particularly good is the selection of He Da's poems, He Da may not be well known to everyone now, he is not particularly famous, but he was a very active student of the United Nations University at that time. He was very closely related to Wen Yiduo and Zhu Ziqing, and the poems he wrote were political lyric poems, even a kind of action poem, like shouting slogans, and these poems were very dynamic at that time. Zhu Ziqing valued He Da's poetry and discussed it in his own articles. If we can capture more of these seemingly small details and microscopic levels, and really feel the richer and more complete literary ecology of the Unidentified General Assembly at that time, I think this is the value of this book.