Background: Poetry goes down in history
On March 4, Lin Yang, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, member of the Central Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy, and former editor-in-chief of the China Art Publishing House, submitted a proposal on promoting the "entry of contemporary poetry into history", proposing that "contemporary poetry entering history" be taken as a key project, and the State Publishing Fund will fund the publication of "Chinese Contemporary Poetry Library". Lin Yang said that since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's excellent traditional culture has developed unprecedentedly. Chinese poetry has encountered an unprecedented opportunity for development, known as the "golden age" of poetry. However, due to some reasons, Chinese poetry is still hovering outside the mainstream literature in today's vigorous development of Chinese cultural undertakings, and there is no large-scale Publication of Chinese Poetry Library. In the face of tens of millions of poetry lovers across the country, millions of poetry creators and emerging excellent poets and excellent works, it is very important to "put contemporary poetry into history".
Recently, around this proposal, the Chinese Poetry Society organized and held a series of "Working Conferences on Promoting Chinese Poetry into the History of Contemporary Chinese Literature" to discuss the theme of "Revisiting Chinese Poetry into the History of Contemporary Chinese Literature".
Wang Bin
Former Vice President of Lu Xun College of Literature
The topic of entering history is very good. Because after the May Fourth Movement, the mainstream literary circles are basically Western styles, very detailed, novels, poetry, prose, drama, and the traditional styles have basically not entered the mainstream. But many people, such as Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, etc., the old style poems are very well written. There are some writers who write purely in colloquial language whose work we don't look at now, and have no taste. I remember Mr. Ye Shengtao said a sentence, what is language? Language is by no means a reproduction of spoken language, and language written down in spoken language is not correct. A language is a written language based on a spoken language.
So what is written language? The first is to purify, concise and literarize the spoken language. In China, the main thing is the tradition of wen and dialect, we read Lu Xun's novels, essays, he has a very good traditional culture infiltrated in the article, so we read it today very tastefully, and it is precisely those writers who wrote things purely in spoken language at that time that I did not read. This prompts our writers today, for example, I am engaged in novel writing, prose writing, if you want to have a new meaning, is it necessary to learn from some of the essence of the ancient Chinese language? We read a lot of good things and see that it is not simply a colloquialism, it is a literary language at work, and of course there are some Western influences. Writing poetry into contemporary literary history today is a very good proposal and a very good precedent.
We who are engaged in contemporary literature should be open-minded and learn from those who are engaged in ancient literature. Learn their respect and inheritance of traditional Chinese culture and traditional literature. The combination of ancient and modern may create new genres and good literary works that are unique to China from the West. I have read some contemporary Chinese poetry, and some ancient poems written by young people are very flavorful. He did learn some of the practices of traditional Chinese poetry, including the rules, including the canon system, which he remembered very well and used naturally. So when we write the history of contemporary poetry, we don't have our eyes shifted to the younger generation. Some of the poems of the old gentleman, such as Chen Yinke's poems, are very good, and the poems of Chen Mingyuan, which were very popular during the Cultural Revolution, are very well written. Therefore, when we write the history of contemporary poetry, we should have a broader eye, from the top, from the bottom, from the left, from the right, may really be able to write well, so I think our ancient Chinese poetry into history this matter is a very great project, I wish this thing can be done well!
Chinese poetry
Hu ping
Former director of the Innovation and Research Department of the China Writers Association
Poetry with strict rules is indeed a treasure of traditional Chinese culture and belongs to the essence of the country. The charm in the lives of contemporary people has never disappeared. No one in the world dares to deny it. In fact, many of the feelings in our contemporary lives are not as concise and appropriately expressed as the ancient poems. Whether it's a new poem or a prose, you can't quote a paragraph to express it. This role is the vitality of poetry, and ancient literature has such a strong vitality, which proves that poetry should indeed enter history in contemporary times.
We cannot ignore this cultural phenomenon, so there is no doubt that the value of poetry remains one of the spiritual necessities of our time. In the creation of modern and contemporary poetry, the modern part is obviously higher than the contemporary part, and there are more famous works, like Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Zedong, Chen Yi, they can all be considered modern or contemporary, the only contemporary work at the poetry conference is Mao Zedong, his poetry can be taken out, the rhythm, the artistry is not said.
Entering history has given contemporary poetry a status and a formal recognition, and I believe that the quality of creation in this regard will certainly improve in the future.
The sales volume of "Chinese Poetry" magazine is higher than that of our "Poetry Journal", and it cannot be said that it will not enter the history of contemporary literature. Although some poems are not as good as the level of ancient times, but it does promote the development of contemporary life, so what I just meant is to set a standard is also very important, that is, what kind of things can enter, such as the "Four Five-Year" Tiananmen Square poetry copy, you want to say how high the artistry is not necessarily, but I think it is to enter history, because he promoted the development of our Chinese society, this is an important social effect of literary creation, we can not use the old artistic level to see, I believe that in the future, when entering the history of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature, tiananmen poetry will be mentioned, which involves standards, and of course I can't think of the standards myself, but I think the premise of entering history is indeed a classicization process. Then record the place of poetry creation in contemporary Chinese cultural life, in which the work of developing contemporary poetry criticism is also important.
We're going to pick out one hundred or 20 of the best poems of our time. In particular, what are the best works created by these 3 million people at present, even if it is only a dozen pages, to be discussed in the society to see if the classicization is enough? This is also a basic work, because now I have seen some young people on the Internet write poems that are really well written, but they have no name. Zhou Xiaotian's lu prize is the first classicization of ancient poetry in contemporary times, which has led to great public opinion. Before entering history, first take out a good text, you say that entering history must be that everyone agrees to enter history, the most important job is to take out 100 poems to see if it is enough to enter the history of the specifications. There is no doubt that there is also a question of the meaning of literary history, that is, what is the meaning of literary history? What is the standard? The meaning of literary history itself is diverse. Does literary history depict the literary phenomenon of an era? Can literary phenomena be included in literary history? I think this perspective can also be considered. Then even if the degree of classicization of ancient poetry is not enough, it should enter the history of literature as a cultural phenomenon.
Chinese poetry
Wang Jianzhao
Professor of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese
We are actually a topic that hopes to bring contemporary poetry into literary history, or how to make contemporary poetry classic, which is still very worth exploring. Although I work as a teacher in Beiwai and my major is to teach foreign poetry, I actually took a course called Classical Chinese Poetry and Cultural Spirit. At that time, my idea of opening this course was to let those students in the north and abroad who spoke very well in foreign languages have a little Bit of Chinese cultural literacy, so that when they go abroad, they will not even know their own culture. My course was to pull a clue, starting from the classical Zhou Yi's words, all the way to the Song Ci. Why talk about Song Ci, I think that if classical Chinese poetry develops from the style, to Song Ci has reached a peak, and later Ming poetry and Qing Ci have been revived one after another, in fact, each generation of poetry will have excellent works, Qing Zi and words like Naran Zhide, even if they are put into the Song Ci, it is definitely not bad.
Just now I roughly flipped through the book "History of Contemporary Poetry" and looked at Mr. Ma Kai's preface, and I think that Mr. Ma Kai said this point is particularly good, that is, new poetry and classical poetry should communicate with each other, learn from each other, and show their strengths. This one is particularly good, don't be mutually exclusive. Even today, sitting together and discussing modern poetry creation and contemporary poetry creation also means that contemporary poetry and modern poetry communicate with each other. At the same time, the "Poetry Journal" has published contemporary poetry in the past two years, and there is a magazine in Liaoning, "Poetry Tide", which has also given a lot of space to contemporary poetry. For example, "Chinese Dictionary" mainly publishes contemporary poetry, but also publishes new poems, which is particularly good for authors engaged in a certain genre to recognize works in a field that they may not be familiar with, and to draw nourishment from those works.
When it comes to how contemporary poetry enters the history of literature, on the one hand, literary historians must have this awareness of incorporating them into literary history, on the other hand, it may be more important to work, only if the poetry works are excellent, literary history cannot ignore you, in this case, you enter the history of literature, or your possibility of being classicized is getting bigger and bigger.
Many of my friends also write poems. When I discussed with them, I asked a question, what are the difficulties faced by a considerable number of friends who write poetry? The language they use in their writing is out of touch with the language of his daily life. I think this is probably something that people who write poetry need to face. Because when you are expressing contemporary life, you still use words like "chai", you are actually ineffective in describing modern life. Because you don't have such a word in your life, then if you use it, the reader or you yourself are still emotionally separated after all, so how to absorb contemporary colloquialisms or modern everyday language, use it into poetry, the key is to use it well, such as "handsome" words used in it, somewhat will feel a little awkward. How to master this degree may still be a problem, so it is more important to provide a work that you can have a classical possibility, which is something that we who create poetry should pay attention to.
I myself have filled in a few words, from the poems can still learn a lot of things, for example, from the imagery and words of classical poetry, how to use it from the past to the present, is also a topic, we draw nutrition from the middle of the text is still very important. When I read contemporary poetry, I have a feeling that some authors still have illustrative politics, politics is not that you can't write, but as a poet, you must have a poetic standard when expressing politics in poetry, and you use poetry to show the politics in your mind, that is, the standard of poetry, whether it is for friends who write poetry or people who write modern poetry, it is a problem that must be realized, which is what your profession needs.
Chinese poetry
Jing Wendong
Professor of minzu University of China
I remember Wen Yiduo had a point of view, he said that the poems of the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were superfluous, and the development of poetry had ended in the Song Dynasty. From the perspective of pure poetry, Wen Yiduo did not lie, but the poets of the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties had the right to use the asanas, genres, styles, and intentions created by previous generations to express their soul reactions in the agricultural era. So in this sense, Mr. Wen's words are only half right, and the reason why the great classical poetry will be replaced by a certain poetic style that has never appeared before must be because ancient poetry is not enough to express modern experience. From this point of view, we can answer the question of Mr. Zheng Min many years ago in this place, who believes that modern poetry is wrong and does not have the glory of ancient poetry.
I think there are three questions: Can ancient poetry be replaced? Who will replace it? Is the standard after the replacement the standard of ancient poetry? I don't think these three issues should be separated. So ancient literature includes ancient poetry, and the way we Chinese know the world is based on taste, and everything that needs to be known by tasting a thing is to be tasted. For the ancients, taste is the soul of all things. So today I leave it in our colloquial language and say "this person has no humanity", right? Everything smelled good.
Since the late Tang Dynasty, we have had a very rich written vernacular language, and the reason why we still have modern Chinese today is to scientificize and technicalize the previous vernacular literature, which is what we call modern Chinese today. Now facing things is for us to see, and in ancient times there were still for us to feel. "I see" is a major feature of modern Chinese, and "I feel" is our ancient Chinese, the sign of the Chinese language used by our ancients, who is confronted with different experiences. So today our ancient poetry in this asana way, how it expresses the kind of experience that we should have seen, if this can't be done, I don't think you can come up with purely advanced texts, and I think it's impossible to go into any history. Including the poems we write today in modern Chinese, only a few people have access to our history. Doing literature is a huge adventure, only greatness is effective, excellence is useless, only a few people can survive.
So I don't think it's necessary to be anxious to enter the history of literature, we say it doesn't count, all the modern literary history we write doesn't count, from a long-term point of view, what is 100 years? As long as the Tang Dynasty left five great poets, I think the glory of Tang poetry can be enough.
I have a suggestion, if we can write a separate history of modern Chinese poetry, it can be juxtaposed with our so-called history of modern Chinese literature and the history of contemporary Chinese literature. If it is ancient poetry to write such a literary history, it is more dignified and independent than entering the history of modern and contemporary literature.
Chinese poetry
Li Linrong
Professor of Beijing Second University of Foreign Chinese
Thanks to the "Poetry Journal" and "Chinese Dictionary" for giving me many opportunities to get close to Chinese poetry, I have learned about many contemporary poetry writers, and I have also read many anthologies of contemporary poetry masterpieces, which has increased my vivid understanding of a special field of contemporary literature.
Below, I would like to share a few thoughts related to the theme of the conference.
The first point is that "poetry into history" involves modern literary history and contemporary literary history, although modern and contemporary literary history is a name, but in fact includes two completely different forms of literary history, in teaching and research is actually two literary histories organized with different thinking and different concepts. Therefore, chinese poetry is facing different problems in entering the history of modern literature and the history of contemporary literature.
For poetry to enter the existing history of modern literature and the history of contemporary literature, it involves two different topics, which need to be dealt with separately. The reason why the history of modern literature is single-line is because it omits a lot of literary creation, literary events, literary phenomena and literary organization that have nothing to do with struggle and destruction, but have actually been active at that time. Just now, Teacher Wang Bin talked about Lu Xun, Yu Dafu and other first-generation standard-bearers and generals of the new literary revolution, whose literary creation activities actually run through the writing of old-style poetry, but these facts have been basically ignored in the general narrative of modern literary history so far. It is possible and entirely desirable to make up for this today. While writing contemporary Chinese poetry creation and related activities into contemporary literary history, we should also supplement the part that was artificially eliminated in the teaching and research of modern literary history in the past.
Today, when we mention that Chinese poetry has entered the history of modern and contemporary literature, we are not only responding to the practical needs of the current social and cultural development, but also continuing the historical process of integrating Chinese cultural resources that has already begun but has been delayed for a long time. Whether from the perspective of academic research and the teaching of literary history or the popularization of literary knowledge, or from the perspective of enriching and expanding the resources and vision of Chinese literary life in the new era, this is a very urgent and important work, and there is no reason to delay it any longer.
The second point I would like to talk about is some specific ideas on the compilation style of writing Chinese poetry into the history of modern literature and the history of contemporary literature. Just now, while listening to the teachers' speeches, I quickly scanned the brand-new "History of Contemporary Poetry" provided by the conference. I feel that these dozen articles in the "History of Contemporary Poetry" have formed a state similar to the academic level of most of the textbooks or treatises on contemporary literary history that are common today. The only slight difference is that the style of the chapters is not the same as the contemporary literary history textbooks that we now use widely. The current textbooks on contemporary literary history generally follow roughly the same historical stage division of contemporary literary development in the overall framework: seventeen years, the Cultural Revolution, the new period, the transition period, and then the 1990s and the new century.
The compilers of The History of Contemporary Poetry may not have known much about the teaching and research of contemporary literary history, so they did not use such a title. It is relatively easy to optimize or modify the title of the chapter. Because the first six or seven chapters in the book are roughly arranged according to the historical context of the development of contemporary Chinese literature, they are also from the early days of the founding of New China to the fifties and sixties, then to the Cultural Revolution, then the seventies and eighties and nineties, and finally to the present, and then the next seven or eight chapters are thematic. If these two parts are adjusted, the context and theme of the previous part of the history are highlighted, and some of the contents summarized in the later special topics are appropriately extended and interspersed into the previous phased overviews similar to the theory of the history of the broken generations, it may be a contemporary poetry history that is close to completion.
Third, I would like to talk in particular about how to implement "poetry into history" with more strength and depth into the details of the writing method. I have noticed that the vast majority of chapters in the History of Contemporary Poetry are still creatively centered and text-focused. I don't think that's enough. If there is only such a way of writing, the basic ecology of poetry writing is not very thorough, nor is it enough, relying only on such a narrative and generalization with creation as the center and text as the focus, our Chinese poetry enters the textbooks or treatises of modern literary history and contemporary literary history, and it is still not enough to withstand other genres. The deep and unique expressiveness and influence of poetry in the spiritual life of individuals and social groups of the author can only be revealed by revealing the causes of its creation and intertexting in connection with the relevant social context. In order to enter the panoramic exposition of literary history with both genres, and like other genres that have long been listed among them, what poetry needs to express most is its unique power and value in literary and social life.
Finally, to extend a layer of feelings, I think that the generation of literary history, whether it is the history of ancient literature or the history of modern and contemporary literature, depends on the support of three links, one is the accumulation of creation, one is theoretical construction, and the other is critical practice, and criticism practice includes selection and commentary. In the past few years, I have learned that the Poetry Journal, the Chinese Dictionary and the Chinese Poetry Society have established many multimedia platforms for gathering, displaying and selecting works for the poetry writing of our contemporary Chinese, and have also carefully compiled and published many thematic masterpieces. This has laid a solid data foundation for "poetry into history" and provided a strong logistical support for the writing and research of promoting the continuous entry of poetry into the history of modern and contemporary literature. However, in contrast, the weaker thing is that the practice of poetry criticism outside the anthologies now seems to be not active and open enough in the situation.
To make up for this, a feasible move at the moment is to support and cultivate a new generation of scholars who are willing to devote themselves to the study of poetry theory bit by bit, including those high-level poetry creators who have been tirelessly and meticulously written in the front line of poetry writing, and guide and support them to do more theoretical arguments, generalizations and excavations for why poetry can live endlessly in the land of China. After such a long period of effort, I think that whether Chinese poetry should be studied and taught in the history of literature in the future will no longer be a question mark question, but will naturally attract us to do often new topics.
Poetry world
Poetry Education Committee of Chinese Poetry Society