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感谢作者特别提供 "I''m just moving along, following a dream" Wen Yiduo, "Letter to Liang Shiqiu, April 24, 1924" Preamble Active in the 1920s, Wen Yiduo (1899-1946) is a leading poet in the formative period of modern Chinese poetry. After two volumes of original work published during the decade, he stopped writing poetry, with only one or two exceptions. Although he did write prefaces for younger poets and edit an unpublished collection of modern poetry, he devoted the last eighteen years of his life to the study of Chinese classics. While his research on such canonical works as the Book of Songs (Shijing) and Songs of the South (Chuci) established him as a respected scholar, his posthumous fame largely comes from his assassination by the Guomindang at the end of World War II for his outspoken critique of the regime. While his writings were banned, for this reason, for decades in Taiwan until the lifting of the martial law in 1987, he has been canonized as a "democracy fighter" (minzhu zhanshi) and "patriot-poet" (aiguo shiren) in the People''s Republic of China (PRC). The multiple roles that Wen plays in modern Chinese history render any in-depth study of him as a poet difficult. Literary critics, especially those in the PRC before the 1980s, tended to interpret his poetry in autobiographical terms, often in light of non-literary events in his life, and saw in his poetry a natural and steady ‘progress’ from decadent aestheticism in his youth toward political engagement as a mature poet. According to these critics, Wen started out as a romantic-aesthete in the pre-1922 period, was awakened to nationalism and patriotism in the middle period, and became a committed, leftist democracy fighter in the last years of his life. The tidy periodization of Wen''s work is problematic in my view. Wen did write on explicit political themes, especially while he was a graduate student in the United States in 1922-25. These poems, fourteen in total, are known as The Great River Collection (Dajiang ji). However, Wen never abandoned his "aesthetist" pursuit of poetic art after 1925. In fact, after he returned to China he was closely associated with Xu Zhimo (1891-1931) and played a leading role in the Crescent School (Xinyuepai) that defended the independence of art from politics. It was also in 1926 that he developed the influential theory of poetry as a synthesis of music, painting, and architecture. If anything, Wen''s poetic art matured in both theory and practice in this period. There was little question about Wen''s interest and engagement in political activities in the last two or three years of his life, but that was long after he had written all of his poetry. Even the last essays that he wrote on literary topics in 1943-45 suggest that his view on modern poetry had hardly changed. The evolutionist approach of many critics is inevitably guided by Wen''s tragic ending and subsumes his poetry under his politics. To subscribe to such a view is to overlook the internal logic of Wen''s poetics and how it develops and finds consistent expressions in his creative work. Despite the growing diversification of scholarship in the post-Mao period, PRC critics have not challenged, in any fundamental way, the conventional interpretation summarized above. Zhou Liangpei, for instance, in his preface to the 1984 Collected Poems of Wen Yiduo (Wen Yiduo shiji), offers a revisionist reading: "To draw a hard and fast line between the Crescent poet in the early period and the democracy fighter in the later period, seeing a transformation from one to the other, probably does not conform to actuality."1 However, when it comes to Wen''s poetry, Zhou hardly goes beyond the received tradition. Defining strong poetry as based on feelings for the "beauty of the people and life," he criticizes Wen for his "formalism" (xingshi zhuyi) and deviance from realism and concludes: "In Mr. Wen''s poetry, we cannot see anything that''s modernist. This is the reason why half a century later his poetry is still understood and loved by us."2 1 Wen (1984), p. 20. 2 Wen (1984), p. 2. If Zhou represents the dominant view on Wen Yiduo in PRC scholarship, a new generation of scholars has sought to go beyond it. The most comprehensive study so far is by Chen Wei, whose book A Study of Wen Yiduo''s Poetics (Wen Yiduo shixue lun) appeared at the end of 2000. As indicated by the title, Chen''s focus is on Wen''s poetics, which she divides into imagery, emotion, poetic form, and so on. While I admire the thoroughness with which Chen examines the key concepts in Wen''s theory and practice, I disagree with some of her points and will elaborate on them later. The objective of this paper is to offer a new perspective on Wen''s poetry and poetics. I argue that Wen is a pioneer Chinese modernist whose significance in world literature merits a fuller and more balanced appreciation in that light. Self-Fashioning of the Poet Elsewhere I have advanced the argument that poetry and poets were marginalized as a result of the unprecedented, fundamental changes in China''s political, social, economic, educational and cultural structures in the early twentieth century. This ''crisis of marginality'' constitutes the starting point for any serious study of modern Chinese poetry.3 Concomitant with the seismic change is a paradigm shift manifest not only in the poetic medium (from classical Chinese to the modern vernacular) and form (from classical forms to free form) but also in the conceptualization of poetry. The three quintessential questions facing all modern poets are: What is poetry? Whom does the poet address? and Why poetry? Against the Chinese poetic tradition of remarkable longevity and enduring prestige, the modern poet''s engagement in such radical questioning always already bespeaks a modernist position. Like all modernists who consciously wrestle with tradition, modern Chinese poets are determined to create something new, including a new identity for themselves. To see how Wen responds, even if only at an unconscious level, to this radical questioning with regard to the fundamentals of poetry, I will turn to the three poems that explicitly address the identity of the modern poet. Discussed in chronological order, these poems delineate the trajectory of Wen''s development as a poet. The first one is "Red Candle" (Hongzhu), the famous title poem of Wen''s first collection published in 1923. Red Candle "The tears of a candle do not run dry till it has turned into ashes." Li Shangyin (813?-858) Ah, red candle! Such a red candle! 3 Yeh (1991), (1994). Ah poet! Throw up your heart to compare. Does it have the same color? Ah red candle! Who made the wax that gave you a body? Who lit the fire to ignite your soul? Why does wax have to burn to ashes Before it emits light? One mistake after another, Contradiction! Conflict! Ah red candle! It''s not a mistake, no, no! Burning is to bring out your light Such is nature''s way. Red candle! Now that you''ve been made, burn on! Burn! Burn! Wake people up from their dreams, Make their blood boil-- Save their souls and Smash their prisons! Ah red candle! The moment your heart-fire glows Is when your tears begin to flow. Ah red candle! The craftsman made you So you could burn. Now that you are burning, Why be sad and shed tears? O! I know! When the dying wind disrupts your blaze Causing it to flicker, You worry yourself to tears! Ah red candle! Flow on! How can you not flow? Please let your wax endlessly Flow to the human world To cultivate flowers of comfort, To bear the fruit of happiness! Ah red candle! A drop of tear, an inch of heart''s ashes The tears and the heart''s ashes are your fruit, To create light is your goal. Ah red candle! ''Do not ask what you reap, ask only what you sow.'' 4 The poem presents the central symbol of the poet as the self-sacrificing candle, which emits light as it slowly and surely dies. Two opposite interpretations of the poem are available. The standard interpretation among PRC critics holds that the poem reveals Wen the patriot-nationalist, whereas the other, newer interpretation depicts Wen as a decadent aesthete. Lan Dizhi may be seen as representative of the latter. Calling the red candle "a symbol of the poet whose soul burns to ashes,"5 he categorizes the work as "aesthetist" and "romantic." The poet pursues truth, goodness, and beauty, but "when this passionate pursuit runs into the wall of reality, the poet gets confused and bewildered, expressing deep sorrow, and falls in love with aestheticism, envious of a bohemian lifestyle."6 I find both of these readings only partially valid. With regard to the first interpretation, "Red Candle" may be called patriotic in the sense that along with many of his peers, Wen saw vernacular poetry, better known in its burgeoning stage as New Poetry (xinshi) in the May Fourth era, as a participant in the national (and nationalist) project of modernization. Both literally and symbolically, New Poetry, recently liberated from the classical tradition, is part and parcel of the emerging New China wrenched free from the clutches of a decayed, oppressive tradition. The contrasting images of prison and emancipation in the third stanza, the heroic role Wen envisions for poetry, and the hortatory tone throughout all suggest the youthful optimism of a May Fourth intellectual. The second interpretation also makes sense if we take "aestheticism" to mean Wen''s identification with and dedication to the poetic art. The red candle is a paradox of 4 Wen (1995), pp. 3-5. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 5 Lan (1995), p. 10. 6 ibid. life made possible by death. The poet must sacrifice his mundane self to give birth to the poetic self. The first is likened to the body, in contrast to the second as the soul. Such is the ''contradiction'' or ''conflict'' mentioned at the end of the second stanza. The poet willingly submits to art and takes pleasure in bringing "comfort" and "happiness" to the world. The implicit clash between the carnal self and the spiritual self corresponds to the conflict between sensual reality and art that Wen talks about elsewhere. In a letter to Wu Jingchao dated September 24, 1922, Wen distinguished "the poetic realm" (shijing) from "the mundane realm" ("chenjing," literally "the realm of dust"). While acknowledging their reality and power, he is nevertheless uneasy about the world of the senses: "When I read poetry, I affirm God, but when I sit in a restaurant, ride on the tram, or walk on the boulevard, new shapes and colors, new sounds, new smells always stimulate my senses, bewildering and unsettling them. The senses are as real as the soul."7 For Wen, art is spiritual and sacred: "I believe art can save me" (letter to Wu Jingchao and Liang Shiqiu, September 1, 1922).8 This view, incidentally, does not contradict with the painterly descriptions of natural scenery in Wen''s early work. The language of "Red Candle" shows signs of immaturity common in early modern Chinese poetry, such as the overuse of exclamation marks, the unnecessary repetition, and the grandiose apostrophes and declarative sentences. They suggest the poet''s inexperience with the modern vernacular as a new poetic medium. Even as a young man at the Qinghua School (Qinghua xuexiao, the early avatar of Qinghua University) in Beijing, Wen was considered an accomplished poet in the classical style. His translation, published in 1919, of Mathew Arnold''s (1822-88) "Dover Beach" (1867) was rendered in classical Chinese, as was his diary from the same year. He probably started writing modern poetry the following year. His first modern poem "Snowflakes" (Xuepian) was published in the school journal Qinghua Weekly (Qinghua zhoukan). The poem caused concern in one of his teachers, who reproached him with these words: "You are an up-and-coming poet of classical verse; there is no need for you to follow the fashion."9 7 Wen (1986), p. 62. 8 Wen (1986), p. 52. 9 Wen (1984), p. 14. Fortunately, not only did Wen continue to write modern poetry but he became its champion. By March 1921, despite his love for classical poetry he considered it "decayed" (fubai). In the essay titled "To Backward Poets, Respectfully" (Jinggao luowu de shijia), Wen opposed the publication of classical poetry in the Qinghua Weekly: "If one really wants to compose poetry, the only way to go is New Poetry."10 He also suggested that his fellow students read Hu Shi''s (1891-1962) and Kang Baiqing''s (1896-1945) essays on the subject. It is clear that, for Wen, to compose poetry in the modern vernacular was a new venture after he had already mastered classical poetry. Wen''s inexperience with the vernacular leaves traces in "Red Candle." In addition to the clumsy uses of language pointed out above, it surfaces in the way Wen falls back and even depends on classical Chinese for the central symbol of the poem. The epigraph from Li Shangyin''s famous regulated verse, "Without Title" (Wuti), indicates Wen''s interest in Late Tang poetry, an interest sustained throughout his life. The poem ends with another classical expression, in this case, a proverb rather than verse. The poem, written in the modern vernacular, is thus bracketed with standard classical Chinese expressions. The mix of modern and classical language may be unconscious but, again, is quite common in early modern poetry. Despite the pioneers'' efforts to create a new poetic language, classical Chinese, in which their earliest education was steeped, often finds its way into their experiments, whether in the form of idiom, imagery, allusion, or ambiance. As for his fellow pioneers, surely it would have been much easier for Wen to write in the classical than in the modern form. Despite the flaws pointed out above, Wen did break new ground in "Red Candle." If the central image comes from Li Shangyin, it is completely transformed from a symbol of the heartbroken lover to that of the poet. He also embeds another paradox in the image, as seen in the pairing of tears (water) and fire, which is absent in Li''s poem. The reference to the "craftsman" (jiangren) in stanza 5 is another original appropriation of classical sources. The image of the maker or creator echoes the notion that poetry is a craft. There is no evidence that Wen was familiar with the Greek etymology of ''poetry'' as ''making'', although his interest in John Keats might have provided an indirect source of influence. The intertextual reference is just as likely Chinese, specifically, to Zhuangzi. In "The Great and Venerable Teacher" (Dazongshi), we find the metaphor of “heaven and 10 Wen (1983), p. 102. earth as a great furnace, and the Creator as a skilled smith."11 The Daoist image of the universe corresponds nicely to the neologism coined by Wen in "Red Candle": ''heart-fire'' (xinhuo). Just as the poet is made in the furnace by the supreme craftsman, the Creator, so his heart is a furnace in which poetry is wrought. Wen''s creativity is also evident in the new way he uses the word "huixin" (translated as "heart''s ashes") in the penultimate stanza. "Hui" is an adjective meaning "gray," and the word "huixin," either an adjective or a noun, means despondency or loss of willpower. In the poem Wen turns it into a verb and creates the image of "hui yi fen xin," literally, "to gray an inch of the heart." In doing so, Wen excavates the concrete image embedded in the abstract word, transforming banality into novelty. "Huixin" performs a double duty in the poem. Despondency or loss of willpower is expressed as the graying of the heart, with gray depicting the color of the ashes, hence death. Although classical poetry abounds in examples of adjectives turned verbs, "huixin" is Wen''s invention. The second poem that addresses the role of the poet is simply titled "The Poet" (Shiren): The Poet People say I am somewhat like a star, No matter how bright, I’m only a sidekick to the moon. It can''t be as useful as a candle or a lamp-- More than just pretty, they shine on the world at work. People say spring breeze turns me into a rose of flame; With one puff, it is reduced to a pile of ashes. With leaves like armor, thorns like bees’ stings, Who dares embrace it in his naked arms? Others compare me to a distant mountain: They''d rather gaze at my face from afar Than believe that in the midst of white clouds There is another world, a heaven. As for the rest, some say this, some say that, But none among them speak the truth. ''Thank you, my friends!'' say I, ''Don''t worry about me, You are so busy, where do you find the time?'' 11 Watson (1964), pp. 81-82. When you are busy, feeling hot and stuffy, When a breeze comes, drink it down without thinking. No need to ask who sends it your way, You''ll find it timely naturally!''12 If "Red Candle" glorifies the poet by casting him in a new image of the self-sacrificing candle, "The Poet" represents a dramatic turn in Wen’s self-stylization. Now Wen envisions the poet as "useless" in the eyes of the world. Neither a lamp nor a candle, he serves no practical function. Like a star that is a foil to the moon, he is insignificant even by conventional standards of beauty. If the analogy of the rose seems to suggest otherwise, the beautiful flower soon withers and leaves behind only unsightly foliage and annoying thorns. The marginalized poet is further compared to a distant mountain; although it contains a better world ("heaven") within, no one really believes that. Thus, fully aware of his own insignificance, the poet asks to be left alone to his work and expects no appreciation in return. Ironically, his request only provides further proof of the alleged superfluity of poetry. Since nobody believes that poetry has any value, who will heed his request anyway? Between "Red Candle" and "The Poet," although the role of the poet has shifted, the intrinsic qualities that Wen attributes to poetry (e.g., luminosity, profundity, and consolation to the world) have not changed. In fact, when we compare the images in the two poems, the way the impact of poetry is described is quite similar. In "Red Candle," poetry brings "comfort" and "happiness"; in "The Poet," it is relief from summer heat. However, a dramatic difference lies in the way the poet responds to how poetry is received by the world. "Red Candle" presents an idealistic picture from the poet-narrator''s point of view, in which poetry plays an important role in ameliorating reality. In contrast, "The Poet" presents the world''s indifference to poetry, seeing it as useless, transient, and removed from reality. The poet is acutely aware of the misunderstanding about poetry, yet he does not feel bitter or inferior. Wen seems to accept poetry''s marginal position in the modern world and is happy to go about his business without any interference. He expects no recognition from the world because poetry is its own reward. In a sense the poem anticipates W. H. Auden''s (1907-73) famous line from "In Memory of W. B. Yeats, II": "For poetry makes nothing happen." 12 Wen (1995), pp. 47-48. Wen''s defense, even celebration, of the "uselessness" of poetry, like that of many Western poets from the Symbolists to the High Modernists, stems not so much from a loss of belief as from a deep conviction about the power of art. It is when poetry is left alone, Wen suggests, that poetry works its magic naturally and effectively. Interestingly, the concluding image of the soothing summer breeze harks back to the "Great Preface" (Daxu) to the oldest collection of Chinese poetry, The Book of Songs, in which poetry is compared to a wind causing the grass to bend in one direction or another. According to Confucianism, poetry (the wind) has the power to edify and rectify society (the grass). However, in appropriating this ancient metaphor, “The Poet” emphatically departs from Confucian didacticism, refusing to place on poetry an unmediated public function, whether it is political, social, or moral. The misunderstood poet is, therefore, also the defiant poet. Defiance here does not connote political dissent, which has a long tradition in China where poets express grievances against social plights and political injustice. Rather, it points to the self-image of the marginalized modern poet. This new image has existed since the very beginning of modern Chinese poetry. Early examples include Hu Shi''s "Crow" (Wuya), who refuses to keep quiet when people dislike its croaking, and Guo Moruo''s (1892-1978) "Heavenly Dog" (Tiangou), whose demonic energy devours the entire cosmos. Defiance is certainly detectable in the last poem that I choose to shed light on Wen''s self-fashioning as a modern poet. The poem is titled "Confession" (Kougong): Confession I''m not lying to you: I am not a poet Though I love the chastity of white rocks, Blue pines and the sea, the sunset on crows'' backs, And twilight, a tapestry of bats’ wings. You know I love heroes and lofty mountains, I love the national flag swaying in the wind, And chrysanthemums in pale yellow or bronze. Remember, my staple food is a pot of bitter tea! But there is another me--are you afraid or not? With thoughts like flies crawling in a garbage can.13 13 Wen (1995), p. 215. (责任编辑：admin) |