Introduction: Toward a Chinese Lyrical Modernity

Abstract

In the storied tradition of Chinese literature, poetry occupies a hallowed position. The scholarship on traditional Chinese poetry fills entire archives. But while modern Chinese literature has now established itself as a thriving field of inquiry, most of the critical writing on it is directed toward narrative. What has happened to poetry in the contemporary period? The development of modern Chinese poetry and contemporary Chinese poetry has had an uneasy history. In addition to the upheavals that have affected all Chinese over the past 150 years, the pressures put on Chinese poetry and poets have been especially heavy. The political tumult in China has often made it difficult to create. But this alone cannot account for the attitude toward modern poetry. Poetry in the modern era has undergone a vast transformation and now bears little resemblance to its illustrious forebears. For the sake of convenience, this volume refers to “contemporary” Chinese poetry. By that we simply mean poetry written after the mid-century war period. All the papers except Michelle Yeh’s, which sets the stage for the rest, focus on the postwar period. But even in the poetry of the postwar period, the development in writing Chinese poetry cannot be understood in neat rubrics.