Refuting "Starting Point": Trial Collection and Goddess in the History of New Poetry

Author: Jiang Tao

Abstract: In the history of new poetry, Hu Shi's Collection of Attempts and Guo Moruo's Goddess are the foundation works for the creation of new poetry. However, looking back at the historical starting point of new poetry, there are often subtle disputes between the two collections of poetry, and the evaluation and historical construction mechanism of new poetry is also carried out in it. This paper investigates the reader's reading, the generation of criticism and the function of literary history narration in the historical orientation of these two poems, thus putting forward its own doubts about the general linear narration of the history of new poetry.

In the general narrative of literary history, the starting point of the occurrence of new poetry undoubtedly began with Hu Shi and his collection of attempts. As the "ancestor" of new poetry, it was Hu Shi who monopolized the invention right of new poetry. The Trial Collection was the first milestone, like a living fossil, which recorded the course of the great liberation of poetry. Undoubtedly, this is almost the most basic common sense in the history of literature. However, in addition to this judgment, another statement is also common, which implicitly constitutes a challenge to Hu Shi and Try Collection. 1922, on the first anniversary of the publication of Guo Moruo's Goddess, Yu Dafu once said in an unquestionable tone: "It started with Goddess", which "I think everyone should admit". In the same year, Wen Yiduo also made a similar comment in his famous "Comment on Goddess": "If you talk about new poetry, Guo Moruo's poetry is worthy of being new!" Later, Mu, Jiao, Zhou Yang and others reiterated this view. Thus, a delicate dispute between "trial collection" and "goddess" began, which means that when looking back at the historical starting point of new poetry, there are at least two versions for later generations, which coexist at the same time in the history of literature, suppressing one, promoting the other, forming a potential debate, and even continuing to the present.

Needless to say, the changes in political situation, time context and political identity between Hu Shi and Guo Moruo directly restrict the attitude of future generations and their ranking in the history of literature. However, in addition to the influence of external history and ideology, the rise and fall of the status of the two poems is still linked to the overall evaluation of the history of new poetry. As a matter of fact, in addition to Tries and Goddess, Zhou Zuoren's Rivers, Shen's Moonlit Night and Zhu Ziqing's Destruction have all been regarded as signs of the establishment of new poetry, and different starting points are related to different opinions on the legitimacy of new poetry. The goddess published that night was set as the real starting point, and the priority of a certain value for time series was also established. In other words, new poetry is not only a historical form, but also an instrumental transformation from classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese. It also contains specific aesthetic demands and historical connotations. Behind the ups and downs of Goddess and Trial Collection, a construction mechanism of literary history has been formed, which is the answer to the question "How did new poetry come into being". Therefore, sorting out the construction process of this "starting point myth" has become a meaningful work.

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In terms of time, Tried Collection was published in March of 1920, while Goddess was published in August of 192 1. Although it was more than a year apart, it basically happened "synchronously", which caused the same great response in the reader's field of vision, and * * * became an early new poem. However, in addition to many * * * features, the "image" of new poetry presented in Trial Collection and Goddess is also quite different, and some internal tension in the period of new poetry is precisely reflected in it.

As the first sample of "new poetry", Hu Shi showed the process of how vernacular new poetry was liberated from classical metrical poetry step by step through the design of preface and arrangement in "Trial Collection". The conflict between the old and the new on the tool level and vernacular/classical Chinese became the main yardstick to identify Hu Shi and his early new poetry images. However, apart from the change of instrumental meaning, another controversial point of Attempt Collection lies in its rebellion against some established standard of "poetry". From the early proposal of "writing poetry into words" to the later explanation of the so-called "poetry empiricism", the efforts to break the boundary between poetry and poetry have been running through Hu Shi's new poetry speech and practice. Whether it is to replace the so-called "poetic words" such as "romantic love, crescent moon, Zhu Yan, Han Yin, jade capacity" with plain and plain spoken language, or to include factors such as reasoning and narration in poetry, the reaction to the general "poetic beauty" norm has indeed brought fresh vitality and historical tolerance to early new poetry, which has become a common tendency shared by new poets, so that it needs to be pointed out in the eyes of future generations that, This "non-poetic" orientation not only runs counter to the reading expectation of ordinary readers, but also forms a secret conflict with the concept of modern pure literature that was being widely spread at that time, and most of the criticisms about "trial collections" arise from this. On the one hand, it is highly respected because of the "great liberation of poetic style"; On the other hand, it has been criticized for dethroning the "poetic beauty", and the image of literary history of Try Collection can be said to be quite embarrassing.

Compared with the collection of attempts, the sudden emergence of Goddess is a satisfactory product, presenting another "face" of new poetry, which invisibly constitutes the other pole of new poetry. Although the passionate and vigorous writing in Goddess has the strongest impact on the traditional "poetic style". However, we should also see that Goddess is also a highly "non-scattered culture" or even "sculpted and whitewashed" work, which is quite elegant in terms of syllables, words and structure. Gorgeous rhetoric, generally unified format and rhyme, and "unconventional" poetic experience are all its remarkable characteristics, which are different from the popular prose poetry style at that time. In the 1930s, Su said: since the emergence of vernacular new poetry, it has rejected the old rhetoric and insisted on simple description. "But poetry is a beautiful writing" and "sensory stimulation, especially visual and auditory stimulation, is indispensable". Guo Moruo's poems are full of heartstrings, baptism, spring of strength, sound rain and light waves of life. Interestingly, in the partial satisfaction of "reading expectation", some keen readers began to compare "Trial Collection" and "Goddess" in the dimension of "poetry".

In the early 1920s, Feng Zhi, a young literary poet, was one of the enthusiastic readers of new poetry. Later, he recalled: "At that time, I bought Hu Shi's Trial Collection, Kang's Grass, and Yu Pingbo's Winter Night, and I didn't have the ability to judge the quality of new poetry. I thought the new poem was like this. Later, Guo Moruo's Goddess, Starry Sky and his translation of Young Werther were published one after another, which opened my eyes and gradually understood what literature and art are and what poetry is. " Here in Feng Zhi, the distinction between "good" and "bad" and between "poetry" and "non-poetry" is between the goddess and "Yadong series poetry" represented by "Trial Collection". Among other readers, the opposition between goddess and trial collection is more obvious. Shi Zhecun studied "Trial Collection" repeatedly for a summer vacation, and as a result, he opposed Hu Shi's new poems. After the publication of Goddess, when he read it for the third time, he "admitted that the development of new poetry should start with Goddess". There are many materials to record similar feelings, so I won't quote them one by one here, but it is not difficult to see that the derogatory comments on the trial collection and the praise and disapproval of the goddess are intertwined, which constitutes the pros and cons of a judgment, and it points to the confirmation of the historical starting point of new poetry, that is, under the premise of so-called "poetry", the "goddess" is the legal starting point of new poetry, while the "trial collection" extends the historical significance of poetry. In fact, the day after Goddess was published, it was on Zheng's current affairs news? Deng Xue published a book review, which clearly pointed out this point at the beginning: Before Goddess, two or three new poems were published, and the number was very small. "To put it bluntly, artistic taste is not very rich." The basic contradiction between the old and the new disappears here, replaced by the existence of "artistic interest"

In readers' reading, the confrontation between Goddess and Trial Collection indicates the transformation of the historical "coordinate system" of new poetry. Of course, with the development of new poetry and the adoption of legal standards, "Goddess" and "Trial Collection" have gradually been pushed to the seal of history. However, in the comments of later generations, the projection of the two poems is still hidden from time to time, and the voice of praise and criticism is always constant. As a pioneering work, Trial Collection undoubtedly has far-reaching influence. In a sense, it plans the basic road of new poetry. It is worth noting that a prominent manifestation of this influence is the constant attack and slander in the history of new poetry. Many new poets seem to have to go back when establishing their own starting point of poetry, starting from the collection of curse attempts, which just proves the importance of the "starting point myth" from the opposite side. Cheng said: "There is not a poem in the trial collection." Zhu Xiang's evaluation is similar, thinking that "there is no song in" Attempt Collection "that is not mediocre." Mu, on the other hand, simply described Hu Shi as the biggest sinner of China's new poetry movement. These remarks, which were widely quoted later, constituted the basic image of literary history in Attempt Collection. It is worth pointing out that although they are based on different standards (the "emotional expression" of romantic poetics, the implication of symbolism and the emphasis on formal rules are all evaluation standards), one similarity is to abolish the legitimacy of the trial collection from the perspective of so-called "poetry", thus re-imagining the direction of new poetry.

Compared with the condemned fate of the "trial collection", the more famous the goddess is, the more she is emphasized as another aspect of new poetry. In addition to Yu Dafu's and Wen Yiduo's remarks in the early 1920s quoted above, Zhu Xiang, who had no mercy on the trial collection, started with Guo Moruo's special expansion of "poetry" and thought that "his contribution was not limited to new poetry, but he had never seen anything like it in old poetry and western poetry"; Although "Goddess" is not a good voice, criticism also comes from time to time. Like "trying to hide", it is often regarded as an existence that has been surpassed in art, and it can't arouse the sense of * * * of future generations on the updated aesthetic scale. However, on the whole, the value of the goddess is superior to that of trying to hide in the eyes of future generations. Even Chen Yuan, who is on good terms with Hu Shi, has listed Goddess and Zhimo Poems as the representatives of vernacular poems in his ten works since the New Literature Movement, but Hu Shi only listed his "literary preservation" and "Trial Collection" which were not on the list. The above impressions, impressions and judgments were condensed into an extremely exaggerated conclusion by Qian Xingcun, the late ally of the Creation Society: "Goddess is the only poetry collection in China and the first poetry collection in China". Here, not only the "first" position of the "trial collection" has been replaced, but also the positions of other new poetry collections have been written off.

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The above criticism comes from different positions, which is directly related to the speaker's position in the literary world and his literary camp, but it has influenced the historical imagination of future generations and laid the foundation for the formation of the image of literary history. The confrontation between "Trial Collection" and "Goddess" is also projected in the outline of new poetry history clues. As the first production of new poetry, the starting position of the trial collection seems unshakable. When talking about new poetry, most narratives of literary history should start from the trial collection. Zhu Ziqing wrote in China's new literature series? In the introduction of poetry anthology, the Trial Collection is called "our first new poetry anthology". Until Yao Yao, this statement has not changed. It seems needless to say this. In contrast, there is no consensus on the historical positioning of the goddess.

In related comments, the goddess was repeatedly promoted as the legal starting point of new poetry. However, value judgment cannot replace the logic of historical experience. Although there have been many discussions about Guo Moruo and Hu Shi, who is the "first person" in vernacular Chinese poetry, the fact that Goddess came out late determines that the above-mentioned statement starting from Goddess is rare in the general description of literary history, and common descriptions still exist.

The first kind of description only regards Goddess as an important work in the period of new poetry, and its position in the history of literature is not particularly prominent. For example, in Tan Zhengbi's A History of China's New Literature in the 1930s, Guo Moruo was only one of the authors of blank poems, and his name appeared at the same time as Wang Jingzhi, Kang and Yu Pingbo. Related to this, in the eyes of many theorists, it is not Hu Shi's Attempt Collection that confronts Goddess, but Kang's Cao Er. In this description, the image of the goddess still appears in the whole process of the occurrence of new poetry, and has not been advocated as a starting point for starting a new stove.

The second description, although emphasizing the special position of the goddess, is often introduced as a "heresy" in the history of new poetry. Zhu Ziqing wrote in China's new literature series? The statement in Introduction to Poems is the most representative: he followed the time clue of the development of new poetry, from Hu Shi to Kang, to Huxiang poets, and then to Bing Xinhe. Finally, he added: "Almost at the same time as the poetry movement, a new force emerged in the Japanese study abroad community, which is Guo Moruo." The implication is that Goddess, based on lyricism, is a branch of the main line of new poetry. This impression is also reflected in the "stage" designed by Shen Congwen. In Shen Congwen's eyes, the representative of the "experimental period" of new poetry is Trial Collection, Liu Dabai's Poetry Collection and Whip Collection, while the representative of the "creative period" is The Collection of Grass Mang, Dead Water and Zhi Mo Poetry, while Goddess is independent of this sequence. Whether it is "a sudden emergence of a new army" or "not bound by the standards of new poetry", in this kind of description, the image of goddess is pinned on the logic of breaking away from the general new poetry, but it is worth thinking that with the change of evaluation standards, "heresy" can often turn into a new "orthodoxy".

Compared with the first two descriptions, the most common and important description is the third one, that is, the goddess is regarded as the representative or beginning of a certain stage of the development of new poetry. There are arguments from the perspective of "poetic liberation". The process from "Trial Collection" to "Goddess" is the process of "poetic liberation", and the two new poetry collections are connected from beginning to end, forming the evolution of new poetry; Another way of saying it, starting from the poetic form standard of1920s, takes Goddess as the starting point of the "metrical poetry" stage of new poetry: Yu Guanying divides new poetry into two stages, and the later imitation of western poetry is the artistic conception of Goddess and Other Collections; Zhao and Chen Zizhan continued this statement, while Yang Zhensheng was more direct and crossed the boundaries of time. Guo Moruo and Xu Zhimo are the representatives of the second period, and their characteristics are also "Western poetry". In this discussion by stages, "Goddess" was included in the mainstream clue of new poetry, but the difference is that it marks the historical transcendence of the initial dimension and the return of the "form" norm of poetry.

If this positioning has hinted at the position of "another point" in the history of literature, then the final description directly promulgates Goddess as a symbol of the legal establishment of new poetry. In his famous Bird's-eye View of China Poetry from the May 4th Movement to the Present, Pu Feng divided the early new poetry (19 19- 1925) into trial period and formation period, and Guo Moruo was promoted as a representative poet of the formation period. The naming of "trying" and "shaping" seems to emphasize that the status of the two periods is not equal, and only the value of occurrence exists in the early stage, and the new poetry was formally established in the later stage. Similarly, Mu summed up more than once: "The May 4th Poetry started with Hu Shi and became Guo Moruo. This is the conclusion I reached when I discussed Mo Ruo's poems in the past. I always think this conclusion is good. "

On the surface, the final description only repeats the personal judgments of many speakers, but there is one thing that is very different. It reveals a subtle strategy for the construction of literary history, that is, the poetic dimension that occurred almost at the time of * * * (the trial collection and the goddess were published almost at the same time, only one year apart), and stretched it into a "diachronic" stage, which Pu Feng explained in this paper. The particularity of this strategy lies in deliberately confusing time sequence and value grade, and its function is to solve the contradiction between the above-mentioned value logic and historical logic. In the tension of history/value, the two starting points of new poetry are reversed into linear continuity of "beginning" and "establishment". In the description of Pu Feng and others, "torsion" is the representative of pushing the goddess back to the "formation period". This "twisting force" sometimes acts on the trial collection, pushing it to the position of "prehistory" of new poetry, and its value seems to be limited to the transition between the old and new poetic styles. Interestingly, Tan Zhengbi also compared Hu Shi's Attempt Collection with Hu Da Jiang Collection in the History of Literature, and thought that both of them represented the period of "not getting rid of the smell of old poetry". At that time, Hu Shi and others excluded Hu, who was neither new nor old, from the orthodox poetry circle, but in later generations, it seems ironic to classify Trial Collection and Dajiang Collection as one category.

Under the influence of this structural strategy, a basic impression in the history of literature has also been formed, that is, the occurrence and establishment of new poems are presented between Trial Collection and Goddess: one is the beginning, the other is the completion, and a time difference of "evolution" or "return" is imagined between the two poems published almost at the same time. On the basis of this impression, the basic clues of the above-mentioned literary history are generally accepted and continue to the present age. As we all know, after 1950s, with Hu Shi's own criticism, the name Tried Collection was once excluded from the history of literature, but Goddess became the legal starting point of new poetry. For example, in the early 1980s, some critics said that Goddess was China's first collection of poems. After criticizing Hu Shi's bourgeois idealism in 1954, it was widely circulated. He also took the following statement made by the Chinese Department of Fudan University (1978) in the History of Modern Literature in China as an example: "Attempt Collection is a reactionary and boring book, which is neither donkey nor horse in form. This collection is varied, like a garbage dump, with many famous articles, but none of them are real poems, let alone new poems! " Even saying that "Attempt Collection" is China's first new poetry collection "is completely wrong." However, since the new period, the historical nature of modern literature research has returned, which undoubtedly brings the Collection of Trial Papers back to people's field of vision. For a time, it has become a common practice for the article to reevaluate the trial collection. It seems inevitable that there is a mild argument between the trial collection and the goddess about who is the first new poetry collection. I won't quote the specific content of the debate here, and the final conclusion is only a clue that goes back to the past: Attempt Collection is recognized as the beginning because of its objective historical existence, while Goddess is regarded as a "monument" established by new poetry because of its multiple achievements in thought and art.

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Between Tries and Goddess, an evolutionary imagination of literary history is established, and the purpose of sorting out this process is not to meet the needs of a certain "discipline history", but more importantly, how to dispel the legitimacy of new poetry in this process.

As mentioned above, in the process of "new poetry", besides the change of poetic language and style, the rebellion against a certain norm of "poetic beauty" and the pursuit of various possibilities of poetic expression are another very important impulse. Although this is not a new idea in the history of literature, considering that it was born in an era of rapid changes in culture, concepts and vocabulary, it is related to such a special historical ambition, that is, to grasp special and ever-changing modern experience in the novel exploration beyond the existing aesthetic norms. From a global perspective, this impulse contains distinct characteristics of modernity. Modernity is one of the hot topics in academic circles in recent years. Some researchers have introduced this framework into the study of new poetry, and summarized the development of new poetry as "the pursuit of modernity". It is not the work of this paper to clarify its connotation in detail. To put it simply, "what can be called modernity" in the field of aesthetics is a kind of "extracting what it may contain from the poetic, transient and accidental" present "in history." Baudelaire's words above plan 19. Since the 20th century, there have been many avant-garde literary thoughts. It is under the potential drive of this impulse that they have surpassed the boundaries of ordinary poetry/literature, thus becoming a pioneering attempt of a group of new poets. However, on the one hand, this attempt caused a radical and rude writing of early new poetry (which is also the reason why early new poetry was repeatedly criticized); On the other hand, it has a fierce friction with the expanding concept of modern poetry.

From a certain point of view, the emergence of new literature includes two processes, one is the liberation of language tools, and the other is the expansion of modern literary concepts. Both of them promote each other and are different, which constitutes the special complexity of the emergence period. In the knowledge expansion of the concept of "literature", the proliferation of some "poetic" discourses is also a meaningful phenomenon. Looking through the poetry papers of1920s, we will find many papers about the definition, essence and genre boundaries of "poetry", such as Kang's My Opinion on New Poetry, Zong Baihua's Brief Comment on New Poetry, Yu Pingbo's Freedom and Universality of Poetry, Guo Moruo's correspondence with published Zong Baihua's On Poetry, and Ye Shengtao's Poem. Most of these articles quoted the literary theories of western professors such as Winchester, Hande and Morton, and established the scientific provisions and knowledge boundaries of "poetry" on the basis of the definition of "literature", which became popular. Even many disputes about poetry often begin with the dispute about the definition of "poetry". In this context, the dissatisfaction with early new poetry has gained a modern knowledge expression. For example, in the "Trial Collection", Hu Xiansu took the discussion of "the theory of poetry" as the starting point, and he thought that "trial collection":

"Although it is not without a little affection, it is also the affection of daily language, not the affection of poetry. The difference between husband's poems and others

Author, the meaning of the text lies in expression, and the meaning of the poem lies in quotation and suggestion.

The duty of writing is to be rational, while the duty of poetry is to move with emotion. "

This passage is quite representative in the early debate about new poetry. Although "old poetry" is still a reference poetry model, conceiving a pure "poetry" ontology and reassessing the direction of new poetry has become the most effective critical weapon in the debate on the premise of defending the boundary between "poetry" and "non-poetry" (poetry/literature). This strategy has also been extended to a new generation of poets. Wen Yiduo and Liang Shiqiu drew a series of similar conclusions in On Winter Night Grass: "You can't admit that a speech is a poem", "You can't admit that a novel is a poem" and "In short, you can't admit that a memorabilia is a poem". Cheng's article "The Defence of Poetry" begins with "Literature directly tells our feelings, not stimulates our rational creation", which is a "cliche" of modern poetics. A few lines of poetry are extracted from five new poetry collections, and the judgment is thrown out without analysis. The main conclusion is: "non-poetry".

Starting from the historical impulse of modernity, early new poetry shows brand-new historical vitality, but it needs to be discriminated that radical writing strategies should not only take readers' aesthetic expectations as the standard, but also accept the norms of modern "poetry". In the debate of early new poetry, it is not difficult to hear the dialogue between the poet's "crossing the border" impulse and the "exclusion" mechanism of pure literature, and the collision between them has been intertwined in the process of new poetry. This means that as a new writing scheme, the connotation of new poetry should be grasped from the perspective of tension structure. This seems to be a special way of understanding. However, in the clue construction of the literary history of Attempt and Goddess, we can not only see that the confrontation of * * * has been stretched and spread into a diachronic "evolution", but more importantly, the above-mentioned tension structure has been dissolved and concealed invisibly, and the clue of the occurrence of new poetry has been simplified into a logic: first, the use of vernacular tools, and then a certain "poetic" quality. Without reflection, this teleological narrative, in a sense, is precisely the product of modern literary concepts.

The formation of the above historical clues is not only related to the fate of the two poems, but also closely related to the overall evaluation of the early new poems and their institutionalized imagination of legitimacy. When the * * * difference between Trial Collection and Goddess is stretched into a diachronic evolution, the complex situation of various possibilities in the new poetry period is organized, and the "dialogue" relationship in the tension structure has also become a two-stage change, just as Guo Moruo himself said: "Chen, Hu, Liu, Qian and Zhou in the previous period. In this issue, Guo, Yu, Cheng, Zhang and others are mainly constructing new literature.