The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry : An Anthology of Verse From the Republican Period

"This is an anthology of vernacular verse written in China between 1918 and 1949, which has been translated into English by Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner. Over 200 poems from more than forty authors are presented. The selections trace the development of the new form of verse that arose during the May Fourth Movement, as part of a transformation of Chinese culture. Innovative writers produced a new poetry written in the common vernacular, baihua, meaning "plain speech"--Thus breaking with centuries of literary tradition that prized the classical form. The collection spans the period up to the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, when the imposition of censorship by Mao arrested the production of experimental poetry on the mainland. Taking a broad perspective, the anthology presents poets of all political allegiances and poetic schools, from committed Communists to Nationalist poets who escaped from Mao with Chiang Kai-shek. There is a rich selection of poetry by women, including poems by well-known writers Bing Xin and Chen Jingrong, and the first English translation of poetry by the novelist Ding Ling. "The rise of vernacular verse in China in the early twentieth century coincided with a period of intense social dislocation. While ours is not a history book, the momentous social and political transformation in early twentieth-century China is the backdrop (in a sense even the engine) of the rise of New Poetry. Many of the poems were written in response to political and/or social events: imprisonment, battle, Japanese burning of villages and bombing of cities, wanderings through the war-ravaged countryside, and the deprivations of the poorest peasants of the great northwest. Other poems speak of the authors' experiences of the joys and sorrows of parenthood and family life, often set against the backdrop of war. The goal is to give a nuanced picture of the astonishingly rapid development of vernacular verse in China from its first appearance during the May Fourth Movement through 1949, the year of Mao's takeover and his imposition of censorship."-- Provided by publisher Cover Contents Translators' Preface Introduction: The Making of Modern Chinese Poetry in the Twentieth Century PART 1: PIONEERS Introduction Hu Shi Thought Dream and Poem Liu Dabai Turtle Tracks of Tears 21 Spring in the Air Autumn Evening on the River Xu Yunuo A Child As the Sun Slides Down behind the Mountain The Cage of Reality If I Weren't Such a Coward Conflagration Lu Xun Dreams Humanity and Time The God of Love Guo Moruo A Night Walk through Jurimatsubara Snow on the Emei Mountains A Confrontation with the Moon Taking All by Storm The Iron Virgin Bing Xin No Forgetting A Token of Remembrance Myriad Stars 10, 28, 48, 95 Spring Rivulets 24, 25, 33, 66, 105, 112, 118, 153, 169, 182 Paper Boats Thoughts of Love Don't Trample This Flower After the Rain Liu Yanling Sailor Ye Shaojun A Small Fish Zheng Zhenduo Distraction 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12 Zhu Ziqing Annihilation PART 2: FORMALISTS Introduction Xu Zhimo On Hearing the Ritual Chant of Repentance at Tianning Temple, Changzhou The Paradise of the Poor Beggar, It Serves You Right! Sayonara Beside a Mountain Path Coincidence I Cannot Tell The Rebirth of Spring Dusk: Six Views from a Car Window Acknowledging Sin The Oriole Farewell to Cambridge On the Train Wandering Cloud Go Wen Yiduo A Gathering of Chrysanthemums Pondering A Little Brook Red Beans 9, 10, 14 The Laundryman's Song Stagnant Water Perhaps: An Elegy The Last Day I Wanted to Come Home The Deserted Village One Phrase Statement under Oath Silent Night Zhu Xiang The Pawnbroker Bury Me Shao Xunmei The Serpent Sweet Dream May The Soul of Shanghai Chen Mengjia An Old White Russian Spring Landscape with a Small Temple Shen Congwen Panegyric I Delight in You Fang Lingru Sailing Past Zhenjiang Pavilion A Stone Fleeting Vision Feng Zhi Snake Sonnet 1: Deep Down We Are Preparing Sonnet 2: Whatever We Can Shed Sonnet 4: Edelweiss Sonnet 5: Venice Sonnet 12: Du Fu Sonnet 16: We Stand on a Lofty Mountain Peak Sonnet 18: Occasionally We Have Spent an Intimate Night Sonnet 26: We Tread Our Daily Path Sonnet 27: From a Stretch of Formless, Overflowing Water Wu Xinghua In Dedication 1 PART 3: SYMBOLISTS Introduction Li Jinfa Casting Her Aside Cherished Desires Yao Pengzi Your Face Lin Huiyin A Smile Do Not Forget Fei Ming Assorted Poems 1, 3 The Dressing Table A Pot of Flowers Street Corner He Qifang To a Friend at the End of the Year Autumn Beneath the Moon Cypress Grove A Prophecy Night Scene (i) The Clouds Our History Is Rushing Forward (i) North China Is Ablaze (iv): Cities Dai Wangshu Rainy Lane Homesick for the Sky My Memory Soon Old Age Arrives A Fly in Autumn Come Here to Me Thoughts of a Wayfarer Village Girl White Butterfly With My Injured Hand Inscribed on a Prison Cell Wall To Endure as a Witness (ii) Impromptu: At the Tomb of Xiao Hong Bian Zhilin A Demon's Serenade Cast to the Earth Let the Current Take It A Friend and Cigarettes Disjointed Lines Untitled No. 1 Untitled No. 4 Untitled No. 5 Train Station The First Lamp Lin Geng May Mist at Twilight Night Li Guangtian Window Crossing the Bridge Ji Xian To Maybe Man Burning City Autumn on the River The Star-Snatcher The Lost Telescope Bird Variations A Locust Leaf Pipesmoking Psychoanalysis Gold Gate Sorghum The Death of Aphrodite Incompletion: One Qin Zihao Desert Wind Inkfish Sunflower Hair PART 4: "PEASANTS AND SOLDIERS" POETRY Introduction Yin Fu Metropolis at Dusk Feng Xuefeng Qingming Festival Songs of Spring (ii) A Poem from the Mountain The Song of Soul Mountain Tian Jian Song of the Hill Country from She Too Will Kill One Rifle, One Zhang Yi Zang Kejia The Old Horse The Rickshaw Puller Workmen Resting at Noon Refugees from Famine The International Cemetery A Goddess The Top The Execution Ground Home Leave A Grave Stagnant Water An Arrest Ai Qing Diaphanous Night Dayanhe Old Man Beggars The North The Street He Dies the Second Time Autumn Morning The Wilds A Pond in Winter Burdens Gambling Men A Young Man's Journey On a Chilean Cigarette Package Wang Yaping Winter in the City To Pawn an Arm Before the Troops Marched Off Ding Ling from Yan'an in July Zou Difan Trekking North Five Short Poems, 1, Rickshaw Wang Tongzhao The Battle Hymn of Shanghai, I A Long Old Soldier Gao Lan Elegy for My Daughter Sufei Liu Jia Governor Yan Xishan's Collector of the Grain Tax PART 5: THE NINE LEAVES POETS Introduction Mu Dan Spring Eight Poems The Flag Demobilized Du Yunxie The Well Moon Bivouac A Common Soldier Left Dead at the Side of the Road The Season's Mournful Face Language Tang Shi The Girl Who Steals Ears of Wheat Tang Qi Fog Time and Banner The First Light of Dawn Hang Yuehe Last Performance Yuan Kejia Nanjing Shanghai Pregnant Woman Thinking about Our Times Chen Jingrong Yellow To Xingzi A Knight's Love: A Dialogue Pulsation Left Behind A Painting of Running Water The Web of Images Idle Chat Isolation Crossing Paths Writing in Chinese The Radio Strangles Spring Weavers of Nets The Sculptor Spring Comes to One Sick of Logic The Unknown Me Spring Song of Youth The Pearl and the Seeker after Pearls On Reading a Midsummer Biography The Walls of the Ancient City of Gaochang The Long Cry of the Peacock Moth A Porcelain Bas Relief of Bodidharma Walking across the Sea After an Illness What the Painted Eyebrow Sings The Sound of Footsteps Zheng Min Golden Rice for Threshing Forest Meeting at Night Village in Early Spring Dipping My Feet in the Water Two Lotus Flowers: On a Painting by Zhang Daqian Wild Beasts: A Painting Apparition on a Winter Afternoon: A Painting The Student A Glance Drought Tree Horse Portrait of an Imperial Maid of Honour by Wu Guxiang Silkworms The Wings of Swans Glossary A C D G H I J L M N P S T U Y Bibliography "This is an anthology of vernacular verse written in China between 1918 and 1949, which has been translated into English by Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner. Over 200 poems from more than forty authors are presented. The selections trace the development of the new form of verse that arose during the May Fourth Movement, as part of a transformation of Chinese culture. Innovative writers produced a new poetry written in the common vernacular, baihua, meaning "plain speech"--Thus breaking with centuries of literary tradition that prized the classical form. The collection spans the period up to the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, when the imposition of censorship by Mao arrested the production of experimental poetry on the mainland. Taking a broad perspective, the anthology presents poets of all political allegiances and poetic schools, from committed Communists to Nationalist poets who escaped from Mao with Chiang Kai-shek. There is a rich selection of poetry by women, including poems by well-known writers Bing Xin and Chen Jingrong, and the first English translation of poetry by the novelist Ding Ling. "The rise of vernacular verse in China in the early twentieth century coincided with a period of intense social dislocation. While ours is not a history book, the momentous social and political transformation in early twentieth-century China is the backdrop (in a sense even the engine) of the rise of New Poetry. Many of the poems were written in response to political and/or social events: imprisonment, battle, Japanese burning of villages and bombing of cities, wanderings through the war-ravaged countryside, and the deprivations of the poorest peasants of the great northwest. Other poems speak of the authors' experiences of the joys and sorrows of parenthood and family life, often set against the backdrop of war. The goal is to give a nuanced picture of the astonishingly rapid development of vernacular verse in China from its first appearance during the May Fourth Movement through 1949, the year of Mao's takeover and his imposition of censorship."-- Résumé de l'éditeur The May Fourth Movement launched an era of turmoil and transformation in China, as Western ideas and education encroached on the Confucian traditions at the root of Chinese society. The Republican period (1919–49) witnessed an outpouring of poetry in a form and style new to China, written in the common people's language, baihua ("plain speech"). The New Poetry broke with the centuries-old tradition of classical poetry and its intricate forms, and the rise of China's modern poetry reflects the rise of modern China. The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry presents English translations of over 250 poems by fifty poets, including a rich selection of poetry by women writers, to provide a nuanced picture of the rapid development of vernacular verse in China from its emergence during the May Fourth Movement, through the years of the Japanese invasion, to the Communist victory in the Civil War in 1949. Michel Hockx introduces the historical and literary contexts of the various schools of vernacular poetry that developed throughout the period – the pioneers, formalists, symbolists, "peasants and soldiers" poets, and Shanghai poets of the late 1940s. Each selection of verse begins with a biographical sketch of the author's life and literary career, including their roles in the Civil War and Japanese occupation. Introducing English readers to master poets who are virtually unknown to Western audiences, this anthology presents a collection of verse written in an age of struggle that attests to the courage, sensitivity, and imagination of the Chinese people.