Introduced through poetry translation or not? Recontextualizing avant-garde nature of Chinese new poetry from the perspective of cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Translation could function as an act of epistemological force of intrusion into the domestic poetic paradigm amid cross-cultural encounter. Chinese New Poetry at the early 20th century featuring Chinese national avant-garde spirit, worked a poetic paradigm shift against classical Chinese poetry, which was in alignment with Chinese Vernacular Movement and the May Fourth New Literature Movement. The inheritance of the traditional Chinese cultural treasure combined with the appropriated forms of foreign poems in creating Chinese New Poetry has contributed to promoting Chinese vernacular language from the periphery to the centre in China’s society then. The paper offers a re-examination of the critical role of the translations of foreign poems in promoting Chinese New Poetry in the early 20th century. It argues that Chinese New Poetry is a hybridized poetic genre with avant-garde spirit encapsulated in the globalization process, challenging the traditional conceptualization of Chinese poetry and reenergizing Chinese poetic prosperity. The intense interactions with the cultural foreignness via the translational activities have helped Chinese New Poetry towards a direction of modernity and openness. By drawing on the cosmopolitanism perspective, the paper relates the dialectic relationship between poetry translation with the genesis of Chinese New Poetry to the wider context of world literature.

Keywords:

• Chinese new poetry
• translational activities
• cosmopolitanism
• avant-garde spirit
• Chinese literary and cultural identities

Public Interest Statement

The author holds that the birth of Chinese New Poetry is of historical inevitability as it is encapsuled in Chinese Vernacular Movement in the wider context of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 amid cross-cultural encounter. Chinese New Poetry, as intricately interwoven with the poetry translations by Hu Shi and other poets during that specific historical period, demonstrates the avant-garde spirit of the poets who have made huge contributions to the poetic revolution in Chinese vernacular style as part of their achievement pertaining to the literary reform in China. Indubitably speaking, Chinese New Poetry promotes the modern Chinese cultural and literary progress which is originated and embedded in Chinese soil, and hence contributing to the diversity and richness of world literature from the perspective of cosmopolitanism.

1. Introduction

In the aftermath of the drastic challenges against the classical Chinese literary writings resulting from the May Fourth New Literature Movement at the early 20^th century in China, it was imperative to establish a new literary norm to govern and guide the development of Chinese literature, especially the poetic creation. In this vein, Chinese New Poetry is encapsulated in the historical process of old-norm-breaking and new-norm-making. As “[c]osmopolitanism usually refers to the social transformation that arises from the mixture of different cultures” (Papastergiadis, 2012, p. 135), whereas to some extent, the genesis of Chinese New Poetry as a hybridized literary product is one of the products of Chinese social transformation at the critical historical juncture via cross-cultural communication with the outside world during that time.

A cosmopolitanism perspective foregrounds the dialogic interactions of cross-cultural communications between different national literatures. Some shared core values are observed in the case of the translations of the special generic writings in the glocalized contexts. For instance, the celebration of individual writing impulses with varying degrees of poet-identity construct enhances and enriches the renditions of the universals regarding human passions and feelings for constructing cross-cultural dialogues. In specific, homogenization and heterogenization are cryptically intertwined in terms of the production and circulation of Chinese New Poetry on a global basis. For example, the intentional transformation of the Western poetry via its rendition into Chinese vernacular language signals Chinese ambitious paradigmatic overhaul in the modern Chinese literary society. It turned out successful by attracting a number of poets, e.g., Hu Shi, Wen Yiduo and Li Jinfa, to write in Chinese vernacular style in terms of poetic writings. These poets have assumed substantial influence in the Chinese literary society. Chinese New Poetry has been endowed with its distinctive characteristics, one of which is the vernacular style as the prominent feature different from the traditional poetic pattern. Drawing on cosmopolitanism, the paper discusses the translation routes of the foreign poems by some Chinese influential poet-translators in the early 20th century, such as the literary activists Hu Shi and Xu Zhimo.

To begin with, the paper dwells on the nature of Chinese New Poetry since the early 20th century and the interactions between the birth of Chinese New Poetry and Chinese translations of foreign poems during that specific period. The discussion is centred on the following research question, i.e., were there any established norms governing the translation of foreign poems along with Chinese Vernacular Movement? It is hypothesized that Chinese New Poetry is a synthesis of the inheritance of the Chinese poetic spiritual contents and the new poetic forms with stylistic inspirations of the poetry translations in an instrumental sense. It contends that the cultural borrowing from the Western styles into Chinese New Poetry via translation promotes the transformation of Chinese poetic and aesthetic paradigms by way of cultural appropriation and manipulation. Against the backdrop of the May Fourth New Literature Movement in China, the poetic genre, together with other literary writings, were employed to challenge China’s backward and outdated social outlook back then with a view to supplanting the obsolete cultural concepts. For instance, Lu Xun’s essays are aimed to wake up the spiritually dormant Chinese masses for a drastic social revolution in that special social context. In short, the paper discusses that Chinese New Poetry is a hybridized poetic genre encapsulated in the glocalization process, subverting the traditional conceptualization of Chinese poetry and reenergizing the poetic prosperity from the perspective of cosmopolitanism.

The study is divided into the following sections, namely, section 2 “translation as a cultural mediator within cosmopolitanism,” section 3 “the rootedness of Chinese New Poetry: indigenous or introduced through translation?”, section 4 “Chinese new poetry towards canonization with strong political assertion,” section 5 “iteration of Chinese new poetry at the early 20th century and its criticism,” and section 6 “situating national avant-garde spirit of Chinese new poetry within cosmopolitanism”.

2. Translation as a cultural mediator within cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism deals with the objective conditions resulting in increasing entanglement of cultural differences, as well as a normative concept with a view to addressing a specific preference towards the hybridization process of such modifications (Papastergiadis, 2011). As one of the potential conditions for creating a hybridized literary genre, translation facilitates the dislocation and relocation of such genre due to various calculations, albeit with contradictory and conflicting comments and reviews. Such is the case of the birth of Chinese New Poetry. In specific, poetry translation is realized by the translator’s reading and deciphering the source poems in a spiritually intimate and intricate manner. The translator, entrenched in the immersion of the package of the original poetic texts and striving to deliver the source poetic messages in the translating language against the shackles of linguistic incongruency between the languages, is presented with translation challenges due to cultural heterogeneity. In the meanwhile, translators could seize opportunity for translational manipulation out of their interests and purposes by striking a balance when rendering the meaning and style of the source text in translation.

Bielsa (2010, p. 161) believes translation studies can provide insights into “key aspects of cosmopolitan social theory” since cosmopolitanism stresses on the openness towards “the Other” just as translation is essentially a form of experiencing the foreignness. Fine (2008, p. 16) concludes that cosmopolitanism in ancient sense is a distinctively politically interrelated with critiques on politics, such as nationalism, patriotism, and “local” illustrations pertaining to the political modernity; whereas the modern concept of cosmopolitanism includes “the integration of particular rights of subjective freedom with the common good” as the crux of the political modernity. In this sense, the birth of Chinese New Poetry, involved with translations of the foreign poetry, is part of the wider context of literary and political modernization of China during the May Fourth Movement.

Lefevere (1998, p. 13) suggests that translation is a cultural strategy to process “the Other”, by juxtaposing China’s several translation events through the history, i.e., Chinese translations of the religious scripts, such as the Buddhist and the Christian works, and Chinese translations of the Western thoughts and literature (Ibid.). In specific, he argues that the translation practices by Yan Fu and Lin [Shu], who preferred to employ classical Chinese language, are equal to the acculturation of foreign works, for instance, “Taoist concepts were used in translations to acculturate Buddhist concepts,” since China deemed itself as “central in the world” of their day (Ibid.).

However, the Chinese Vernacular Movement changes such ego-centric paradigm of Chinese attitude of its traditional cultural supremacy. As Lefevere (1998, p. 14) observes, Yan Fu and Lin Shu’s efforts in such acculturation had been made impossible due to Chinese Vernacular Movement which denied the validity and legitimacy of classical Chinese language among the officials, intellectuals and literati, together with the progressing Western influence in China in the 20^th century. Such Western influence is introduced via proactive translation activities then. About this specific historical context of China’s New Culture Movement, N. Wang asserts the important role of translation in China’s modern history, by stating that translation is “a special mode of cultural interpretation and a catalyst for cultural transformation” (2012, p. 188).

In this vein, China’s large-scale cultural translation activities during the late 19th century and the early 20th century did serve such purpose. Among those, the challenges and difficulties of translating foreign poems should not go unnoticed. For instance, in arguing for Shelley’s declaration of the impossibility of translation, Bassnett believes that Shelley was saying the transfusion of one poem from one language to another language is impossible, whereas the transplantation of it would be applicable (1820, as cited in Bassnett, 1998, p. 58). Bassnett continues confirming that it is the translator’s task to substantialize that transplantation by confirming the location for the seeding and development of it (Ibid.). In the similar vein, therefore, that whether Chinese New Poetry is a home-grown or a foreign transplantation is discussed in the following section.

3. The rootedness of Chinese new poetry: indigenous or introduced through translation?

The early 20th century unequivocally has witnessed eventful upheavals in China during the historical shift from feudalism to modernism. The modernizing process of Chinese literary advancement from 1910s to 1920s has been precipitated by a series of politically intended translations in social sciences characterized with the interplay of various disciplinary dynamics, and “a politics of visibility” is foregrounded by translation (Vázquez, 2011). For instance, the Chinese Vernacular Movement has been politically weighted, which has contributed to the development of Chinese New Poetry. And the campaign of Chinese New Poetry promotes the experiment of Chinese vernacular language in return. The Chinese Vernacular Movement challenges the dominance of the traditional Chinese classical language and constructs a new language paradigm in light of historical and social circumstances. Back then, many Chinese scholars and writers with overseas educational backgrounds who contributed to the May Fourth Movement in 1919, treated the Chinese Vernacular Movement as the national cultural strategy for the purpose of education at the mass level. Hence, Chinese New Poetry is teemed with Chinese poets’ autonomous cultural and political considerations as some of these poets were translating foreign learnings for the Chinese readers.

The discussions about that Chinese translations of foreign poetry during that specific period directly give birth to Chinese New Poetry have been challenged. For instance, D. F. Wang insists that “it has been proven that vernacular new poetry had appeared way before the translation of free verses in vernacular” (2019, p. 152). However, undoubtedly, the birth of Chinese new poetry has been intertwined and intersected with the translation activities of the foreign poems by the influential Chinese literati, such as Hu Shi and so forth.

Modern cosmopolitanism “concerns the processes through which localities are modified by global phenomena, as well as the transnational connections that are established worldwide” (Bielsa, 2010, p. 168). Descriptive accounts of the genesis of Chinese New Poetry in the early 20th century via translation activities are presented, so as to showcase the identity legitimacy of a particular group of poet-translators in deciphering and disseminating the foreign poetry into Chinese local context on a global arena.

Consequently, varying degrees of cultural appropriation and adaptation occur in the translation process inasmuch the translation difficulties and challenges are historically, socially and culturally inherent. The translated poetry exerts heavy influence on the literary styles and creation of modern Chinese poetry (Xiong, 2009, p. 34), and “the translated poetry played an important role in the development of Chinese modern poetry” (Xiong, 2013, p. 141). For instance, Hu Shi’s translation of Sara Teasdale’s Over the Roofs in Chinese vernacular language (e.g., J. M. Yang, 2016a p. 3; Wang & Zhang, 2018, p. 71) chimes in the propositions of Chinese New Poetry Movement (Xiong, 2013, p. 137). Drawing on Hu Shi’s translations of foreign poems in Chinese vernacular language, it is suggested that the translations within specific historical contexts could be manipulated and promoted as an effective tool of paradigm overhaul in Chinese poetic writings. In this sense, poetry translation is an act of challenge against the poetic pattern of Chinese classic poems and in succession to Chinese literature in general in the political and literary senses. It is acknowledged that Hu Shi has been praised as one of the important founding fathers in establishing the genre of Chinese New Poetry through the poetic writings in Chinese vernacular language. “[Hu Shi] envisions a new poetry of individuality, originality, and sincerity” (Yeh, 2000, p. 23). Similarly, an article titled “What is new literature” (Shen Mo Shi Xin Wen Xue) in the New Youth magazine by Li Dazhao expounds on the basic characteristics of realistic literature (Q.Z. Zhang, 2015, p. 432, italics in the original), particularly with strong political considerations.

Hu Shi claims that he himself has been “the only person in the experiment field of Chinese New Poetry” (Hu, 2000, p. 146, translation mine). As Wang and Zhang (2018) hold that Hu Shi has made great contributions to modern Chinese literature with his vernacular poetry which frees itself in terms of the language and pattern from the shackles of Chinese classical language; in the meanwhile, Chinese vernacular language is a powerful tool in promoting the literary reform in China then. Consequently, the debate on whether the introduction of Western literature through Hu Shi, especially through his translated poems, has initiated the Chinese New Poetry remains unresolved. As mentioned earlier, D. F. Wang (2019, p. 151) challenges the popular view that “Chinese New Poetry came into being under the influence from its Western counterpart, and Hu Shi is the first poet of Chinese New Poetry.” Adopting Michel Foucault’s methodology of the Archaeology of Knowledge, D. F. Wang concludes that “it is the double influence of Hu’s ‘eight-don’ts’ theory and the new poems he wrote that quickly changed the norms of poetic translation in China from traditional metrical form into free verse after the appearance of vernacular free verse” (2019, p. 152).

In this vein, D. F. Wang has made a strong point about the “independence” spirit of Chinese New Poetry, by opposing the view that Chinese New Poetry has long been regarded as the direct product under the Western influence. In D. F. Wang’s judgment, besides the intentional manipulation of the form-borrowing in the course of translating Western poems, Hu Shi has substantially integrated the elements of Western poetry into his propaganda scheme of disseminating the specific vernacular style of Chinese poems as he advocates, e.g., his translation of Over the Roofs.

Sara Teasdale’s Over the Roofs is a love poem, and Hu Shi prefers to choose this poem for experimentation because it describes the universal love feelings and emotions that can be shared by the human being regardless of their cultural backgrounds. In addition, Hu Shi tries to revamp and rewrite the Chinese classic poetic form with his categorical statement of Eight Don’ts which puts emphasis on the important practice of Chinese vernacular language. Doubtlessly speaking, Hu Shi has been playing a pivotal role in promoting the popularity of Chinese poetry in the form of vernacular verses. And Hu Shi’s manipulation via his translations of the Western poems in vernacular style could be viewed as substantial support for promoting Chinese New Poetry. However, it should be borne in mind that the hardcore principles of Eight Don’ts disciplined by Hu Shi weight much more in the political sense in terms of establishing a new poetic paradigm as one of the tangible forms of social progress, than setting a strict poetic training practice in the technical sense. In addition, a superficial summary that Hu Shi has completely discarded the classical Chinese poetic forms with the shallow comprehension of Hu Shi’s “Eight Don’ts” theory should be guarded against.

As the translational activities in China have been under the influence of ideological and political factors explicitly or implicitly (Sun & Mu, 2008, pp. 50–74), Hu Shi’s advocation for a new poetic form is lucidly explained as more politically important than its literary values. Delanty (2012, pp. 1–8) claims that cosmopolitanism pays attention to the “bonds of inclusivity” in its political philosophy which has treasured the virtue of openness. Thus, the translations of foreign poems along with Chinese Vernacular Movement create opportunity for China to promote cross-cultural connectivity with the outside world by deepening their internal dialogism. Therefore, Chinese New Poetry has been presented with resources and Chinese New Poetry develops with resilience correspondingly.

To explore further, why did Hu Shi choose the Chinese vernacular style to transform the poetic essence of the Western poems while he could have perfectly resorted to classical Chinese style in translations as D. F. Wang (2019) argues? A careful consideration of a larger historical and radical significance is needed in approaching the political nature of Chinese New Poetry in the global context.

4. Chinese new poetry towards canonization with strong political assertion

China’s New Poetry is constructed as a new literary paradigm of political poetics in its specific historical context. Hu Shi, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo and so forth have made their great efforts in building up Chinese New Poetry by writing in Chinese vernacular language. For instance, Wen Yiduo is acknowledged as the first advocate who has promoted Yin Dun Shuo pertinent to setting the metric and rhythm norms in Chinese New Poetry by his own translation activities (K. Yang, 2020 p. 27). Guo Moruo has also played a significant role in constructing Chinese New Poetry in the respect of poetic spirit and techniques (Zhu, 2008). However, in heralding the birth of Chinese New Poetry, the inevitable irreconcilability between the new poetic form from foreign sources and Chinese traditional cultural spirit is acutely felt. For instance, J.Y. Zhang (2020, p. 51) examines the self-contradictions in Wen Yiduo’s early poetry writing stage. Wen Yiduo, by drawing from his learning from Western poetics in combination of Chinese classic poetry, reflected and criticised that the freestyle of Chinese New Poetry had abandoned the rigid forms and rules of Chinese classical poetic composition. But then Wen Yiduo’s own poetic creation belongs to Chinese New Poetry exactly which is aimed at discarding Chinese poetic traditions (Ibid.).

By delving into the historical examinations of Chinese social evolution in early 20th century, Liao (2014, p. 303) concludes that Chinese modernity “is a product of the procedure of ‘creative adaptation’.” Liao acknowledges that poetry has played a role of vanguard in the May Fourth Movement, which has built “the path of modern poetry in the Chinese context” (Ibid.). Moreover, such poetic transformation, inspired by “[m]odernist revolution in the West” and empowered “through the May Fourth vernacular movement” (Ibid.), encourages an inevitable continuum of the modernization of Chinese poetry in Chinese vernacular language. Thus, the birth of Chinese New Poetry is of historical inevitability. It is a thoughtful manipulation of the translated Western poems with an emphatic political assertion of the Chinese Vernacular Movement for its own historical advancement.

The birth of Chinese New Poetry is inextricably involved in the May Fourth New Literature Movement with promoting Chinese vernacular language in the early 20th century. It is conjectured that two categories of poets are important in the historical course of forming new poetic progress. One group is who initiates and designs the form and the language for the new poetic genre; the other group is who carries on the new poetic mission for further improvement and enrichment, which might aggregate to another new round of poetic development ultimately.

Historicity and political implications work respective effects in the formulation mechanism of poetry regarding different national and cultural backgrounds. National cultures of the world are connected islands due to their cross-cultural interactions, which might involve peaceful integration of, invasion into, direct influences on and hidden implications of each other. Tsui (2014) highlights the complexity of the transference on both the linguistic and conceptual dimensions in the cause of “the spread of Western learning to the East [西學東漸],” which plays a crucial role in China’s modernization process. Such process is hugely involved in translations of foreign works with careful translational considerations on linguistic and cultural levels proposed by the literati and people from other social sectors in China.

As Chan (2005, p. xiv) states that the cosmopolitans land in a variety of circumstances inadvertently in the context of post-modern times resulting from the temporal-spatial compression, and thus their choice to survival lies in pragmatism and adaptability. By analogy, as regards the key to the survival of Chinese classic poetry via its inheritance into Chinese New Poetry, an autonomous awareness of rejuvenating national culture and literature has forced the Chinese literati to adapt their new poetic contributions in a pragmatic sense.

Klein (2018, p. 231) argues that Chineseness is inextricably linked to translational transformations, by explaining that from the historical perspective, Chinese literatures, cultures, and epistemologies have been proactively nativized and foreignized through the dialogues and negotiations with others. Li Wangdistinguishes the approaches towards the Western free verse and those emulates the Western poetic forms, while the former is called vernacular poetry, the latter is deemed as Europeanized poetry. Such nuances in the differentiations again reflects the complex relationship between the translated foreign poems in Chinese vernacular language and Chinese New Poetry (SeeLi Wang’s Hanyu shilüxue, pp. 852–869. as cited in Klein 2018). Therefore, the act of translating foreign poems by Hu Shi and his companions into Chinese vernacular language amounts to a political enunciation, embracing a hybridity with foreign element but with a clear autonomous political mission of reconstructing Chinese New Poetry paradigm in the new era. It opens the possibilities of Chinese poetry revolution by allowing cultural heterogeneity to challenge the domestic poetic conventions and traditions, which is consistent to the avant-garde spirit of the zeitgeist. It is extrapolated that Hu Shi was targeting for promoting the elite knowledge and education at the mass level, as a top-down approach by leading Chinese New Poetry featured with the dominance of Chinese vernacular language.

5. Iteration of Chinese new poetry at the early 20th century and its criticism

The genesis of Chinese New Poetry bears unavoidable entanglement with translations of foreign poetry into Chinese vernacular language by a group of avant-garde Chinese poet-translators. For instance, Hu Shi’s translation practice highlights the necessity of using Chinese vernacular language to write and publish. As a result, Hu Shi’s translation of foreign poetry into Chinese vernacular language has precipitated waves of empirical changes in the most part of the Chinese literary circle, concordant to the political appeal for the purpose of promoting Chinese vernacular language in the mass education.

In effect, J. M. Yang (2016a) demonstrates that the translation trajectory of Hu Shi’s early experiments of translating foreign poems using the Chinese classical poetic form and images for the representations of poetic feelings and emotions. J. M. Yang summarizes that Hu Shi has made full advantages of the ancient Chinese poetic form, Lisao style, which progresses later into Chinese vernacular style in the poetic experimentation in the linguistic aspects (Ibid.). It is conjectured that the use of classical Chinese is not conducive to general education at the mass level back then. And Chinese poetic revolution in vernacular language seems to have lowered the literacy thresholds, which permits and persuades more poets or poets-to-be to participate in the New Literature Movement of political significance. Apparently, Chinese modern poets’ writing attitudes is of more importance than the writing qualities of the poems. However, it is undeniable that the shift from the Chinese traditional poetic form into the Chinese vernacular style has injected vitalities into the emancipation of the poetic creation from the classical formal rigidity, which is an epochal event in the history of Chinese poetry development. In the meanwhile, such poetic experimentation of blending traditional Chinese poetic essence with the introduced heterogeneous poetic form of free verse into Chinese New Poetry has been operated within intralingual level as well.

For instance, the interesting and enlightening point J.M. Yang (2016b) makes is that Xu Zhimo, a romantic modern Chinese poet, has translated the poems of Li Qingzhao, a Chinese female poet from Northern Song Dynasty, from ancient Chinese into Chinese vernacular language, resembling an act of paying homage to the classical Chinese poems. Thus, the poet-translators’ awareness of resorting to political manoeuvre of Chinese vernacular language in educational and aesthetic senses for the reader public is worth noticing. The intralingual translation case as shown in Xu’s urge in representing and reproducing the traditional master pieces in Chinese vernacular language constructs his own poet-translator identity, which is also part of the general trends in the literary turn of his time. Therefore, the intentional uses of Chinese vernacular language symbolize a poet’s political position in a much stronger sense in the form of literary poetic composition. It is worth noting that the bifurcation of the poetic original enlarged by the juxtapositions of Li Qingzhao’s original poem and Xu’s rewriting of such poem in Chinese vernacular language as shown by J.M. Yang (2016b), demonstrates a subtle sense of balance and harmony in the diachronic development of Chinese language per se in terms of Chinese poetics and aesthetics.

As observed, Xu’s experiment with Li Qiangzhao’s poems corroborates the literati’s voluntariness of embracing the vernacular poetic form. In this vein, the historical significance of the early Chinese New Poetry lies in part of poet-translators’ persistence and insistence of applying the new linguistic tool of Chinese vernacular language to rewrite what has been repeated and reiterated through the inheritance of the traditional Chinese culture. The form rupture between Chinese new poetics and the traditional poetics on the surface seems hugely apart but the two are aligned with each other in retaining and continuing the spirit of Chinese cultural treasures and traditions.

On the other hand, the Chinese Vernacular Movement has caused hot debates over the linguistic choices when the translating foreign works among Chinese literati. For instance, in replying to Xun Lu’s acknowledgement that Chinese vernacular language is regrettably insufficient in terms of the ways of expressions and contents, Qiubai Qu states that the translation activities of foreign works should strengthen the ontological significance of Chinese vernacular language as a new linguistic force with enriching diversity and growing precision for improvement. Qu demonstrates complete dis-approvement of using the classical Chinese style in Lin Shu’s translations and he even advocates the eradication of such translational writing (Qu, 1932/2009, pp. 355–356). In short, in the process of Chinese poetic absorption of foreign elements, Chinese poets are struggling to maintain their own authorial identities in a wider context of constructing national cultural and literary identities. It is worth noting that the introduction to Chinese vernacular poetic forms helps emancipate the minds of Chinese poet-translator and present them with the challenges of the experimental writings at the same time.

However, despite the possible writing inconveniences and difficulties due to the radical shift of poetic paradigm, Chinese literati’s political mission of changing the society via Chinese Vernacular Movement has been one of the overriding issues that predominate other considerations during that specific historical period. However, the inadequate attention by these poet-translators to the literary aspects of translating foreign poems does raise concerns. For example, D. F. Wang (2019, p. 156) has shown dissatisfaction with Hu Shi’s manipulative renditions of the metrical poems of Byron, insisting on adopting strict rhymed patterns inspired by the traditional Chinese poems to approach the foreign poetic forms, so as to keep the original foreign flavour of Western poetry for the Chinese readers.

D. F. Wang (2019, p. 158) regards Hu Shi’s deliberate distortion of the Western modern poems for his own purpose of promoting his appeal for a new Chinese poetic form as profanity of the original works. D. F. Wang (Ibid.) deems such translation practice violates “literature and transition ethics” (translation mine) insomuch Hu Shi’s well-circulated translations of the English poems in vernacular free verse pay no attention to the foreign poetic metrics which is the quintessence of the original poems. D. F. Wangdirectly labels Hu Shi’s translations of foreign poems in Chinese vernacular style as misleading. It is especially so when the monolingual Chinese readers strive to learn foreign poems through Hu Shi’s translations as they could not read the original poems. “Hu Shi and other social intellectual elites manipulate the translation of foreign poems for their own purpose of promoting New Culture Movement” (D. F. Wang, 2019, p. 164, translation mine). Therefore, Hu Shi and his companions have made clear their social and pedagogical missions to promote Chinese Vernacular Movement through the manipulations of the linguistic choice of Chinese vernacular language as an influential-to-be linguistic alternative.

At present, in particular with the cultural turn within translation studies, N. Wangstates that “in the process of cultural globalization, cultural diversity gains a stronger position than cultural homogenization” (2012, pp. 5–6, translation mine). Thus, Chinese New Poetry is a vivid example benefiting from such cultural globalization process from the perspective of cosmopolitanism.

6. Situating national avant-garde spirit of Chinese new poetry within cosmopolitanism

Does Chinese New Poetry function as a rupture or a continuation of Chinese classical poetry in light of its historical validity and significance of epochal change? The questions have been answered to some extent in the previous discussions. Hu Shi’s heralding of Chinese New Poetry is politically and psychically determined and literarily substantialized. Such revolutionary spirit imbedded in Chinese New Poetry equals to the construct of national avant-garde spirit through poetic writings in the new historical context. Despite that avant-garde works are claimed to be “less accessible” and “to be linked with elitism” (Murphy, 1998, p. 21), Chinese New Poetry with avant-garde spirit is actually aimed for wider accessibility among the Chinese masses led by the cultural and literary elites at that time. To some extent, it could be argued that Chinese New Poetry is essentially a manipulative rewriting of the foreign poetry to accommodate the conceptual originality and innovation by the Chinese modern poets. In supporting André Lefevere’s proposition that translation researches should combine the concept of rewriting, Bassnett (1993, p. 148) also asserts that translation, as a significant literary means, could be examined under the concept of rewriting, so as to manifest the modes of shifts as regards its reception in the target literary system. As Eliot (2016, p. 11) notes, translating foreign poems into Chinese traditional verse forms is akin to “stuffing the original into the corset.” Such rhetorical expression might provide an intelligible and a logical way forward to conceding the urgency of establishing a new Chinese poetic norm and standard which would unleash the potentials of originality and vitality of Chinese modern poets for poetic progress and prosperity onwards.

In defending the pivotal role of translation in catalysing the social transformations in Chinese history, Lin (2002, p. 183) argues the translation activities have been employed as powerful weapons for meeting different purposes in line with the recognition of the social transformation power of translation. Invariably, the birth of Chinese New Poetry has been inextricably linked to the translation of foreign poetry. The mission of translating foreign poems into Chinese vernacular language initiated by Hu Shi and other prominent poet-translators, resides in the imminent call for cultural education at mass level which shall wield wider social influence via the poetic creations.

The May Fourth Movement in China in 1919 witnessed revolutionary reforms in the forms and modes of Chinese literature, together with radical shifts in the linguistic flux due to the promotion of Chinese vernacular language, which radically challenges traditional Chinese writing style. In particular, the introduction to Western poetry through its translations to China’s literary circle has contributed to the promotion of Chinese New Poetry characterized with avant-garde spirit, which has exerted profound influence on the continuum of Chinese poetic evolution through the whole century.

Radical changes seem to be welcome by many Chinese modern poets who were both translating the foreign poems and creating new Chinese poems accordingly in the meanwhile. The historical influence of the vernacularization of Chinese poetry writing actually modifies and retains the elite culture against the backdrop of the new historical context. Rhetorically speaking, the challenges formed by Chinese modern poetry to the classical poetry in the early 20^th century is as phenomenal as David taking on Goliath (Yeh, 2000, p. 3).

In this sense, it is easy to force a conclusion that Chinese New Poetry is like a historical settlement of the traditional poetry. The claimed rupture between the classical Chinese poems and the modern poems ignores the inherent historical requirements of carrying along the poetic spirit of the traditional Chinese poems that construct Chinese literary and cultural identities as always. As argued above, these poets actually have inherited the classical Chinese poetic inspirations in retaining the cultural referent, allusion, and metaphor in the poetic reform. In this vein, the genesis of Chinese New Poetry is a continuum of the spiritual essence of the ancient Chinese poetry, which is the psychological interior in the mantle of westernized poetic forms fraught with distinctive historical features.

Although the inheritance of classical Chinese poetics could not be overlooked, it is even more important to strike forwards with new poetic experiment. Chinese literary patterns have been expanded through new cultural paradigms introduced via translations, which prepares Chinese literature for the transition from modernity to postmodernity (Sun, 2018b, p. 108). The trajectory of Chinese New Poetry manifests the eagerness and anxiety of Chinese poets at that time to orchestrate an inspiring poetic repertoire aimed to inspire the nation and the people, which is more politically important than its literary achievement. Similarly, it is observed that the promotion of Chinese vernacular language in writing and improving the epistemological aspects on a mass level could be found in echoes to the similar cases in the linguistic vernacularization of Bible translations occurred in the Western countries at earlier times. For instance, Martin Luther’s Bible translation in Germany was aimed for the construct of German religious identity by producing fluid translations accessible and comprehensible to the general public, which helped his nation to get free from the cultural blackmailing of the Latin Vulgate translation (Burger, 2014, p. 481). Therefore, it is speculated that the need for the construct of national literary and cultural identities through the construct of new poetic forms, makes it politically necessary to make clear statements of breaking up with the traditional poetics which has been problematized as backwardness and outmodedness.

Chinese New Poetry is encapsulated in a dynamic process of interweaving a new cultural construct at the syntagmatic interaction with the heterogeneous poetic injection. D. F. Wang (2019, p. 152) states that “after the emergence of the vernacular new poems, the translators adopted a ‘de-metricalized’ approach in translating the Western poems,” which strongly suggests the instrumental use of the introduced Western poems via translation. The fact is that poets with avant-garde spirit like Hu Shi were camouflaging their real intentions of setting the vernacular poetic norm to govern the new wave of Chinese literary reform with the manipulation of translated poems, so as to exert their social and literary influences. Some influential modern Chinese poets (e.g., Hu Shi, Li Jinfa, Wen Yiduo, and so forth) showcase their strong adherence to the newly formulated vernacular poetic forms, and establish their own poetic criteria and preferences as regards various subject-matter domains and the poetic rhetoric experimentation as their writing idiosyncrasies. The formulation and regulation of Chinese New Poetry resemble a potential and flexible exchange and hybridization in terms of negotiating Chinese traditional poems with the cultural heterogeneous elements, which is introduced through the translator’s agencywith their voluntary learning and modifying of the foreign poems. Their voluntariness comes at the critical moment in substantiating the Chinese Vernacular Movement emanating from their interacting cultural inheritance and poetic innovations, though it is with confrontations and conflicts with traditional poetic patterns.

The prominent political implications in the Chinese New Poetry intend to defy the traditional Chinese poems in both forms and languages (e.g., in Hu Shi’s Eight Don’ts’ theory), which suggests its seemingly clear-cut divide with Chinese traditional poetics. Nonetheless, it is inappropriate to make such conclusion that Chinese New Poetry should fall into the pathetic category of being a mere replica of the Western thoughts. Chinese New Poetry is neither an adulation of foreign poetry. Put directly, Chinese New Poetry is a synthesis of both Chinese poetic tradition and the new learning of foreign poetics via translation.

The adaptations of the cultural foreignness in Chinese New Poetry occurred at the personal and collective levels within Chinese literary circle in the specific historical and social milieus. Chinese New Poetry embodies the authenticity and originality of Chinese modern poets albeit under strong foreign influence. Such innovative poetic creations are distinctive in their own terms tinged with projection of foreign flavour, as “[a] sympathetic imagination that is cosmopolitan in scope emerges as a means to cultivate a cosmopolitan community in practice” (Hallemeier, 2013, p. 91). Moreover, the rise of Chinese New Poetry emanates from the literary revolution against the historical obscurantism, with a view to educating and illuminating the Chinese masses. In this vein, Chinese New Poetry stands firmly for cosmopolitanism due to its openness to engage in the cross-cultural communication with the outside world for its poetic development and empowerment.

7. Conclusion

Translation studies should be situated within “a wide range of professional, cultural, social, individual and political activities” (Bassnett & Johnston, 2019, p. 186). In my opinion, modern Chinese literati like Hu Shi and his companions were striving for new poetic experiment in consistence with the essential spirit of classical Chinese poetry that has defined and continues to define the specificity of China’s literary and cultural identities. Situated in a nationalist agenda of political ambitions in the May Fourth Movement, the initiation of Chinese New Poetry is explicated as translational production via different narratives at times. However, it is worth noting that the legitimacy of creativity and novelty of Chinese New Poetry is pronounced as part of the construct of Chinese literary and cultural identities.

Since the strict Chinese traditional poetic forms are compared to “the corset” (Eliot, 2016, p. 11), which suggests that the natural breathing and flowing of the new poetry would be suffocated and smothered if governed by the traditional poetics. Hu Shi’s powerful influence on the progress as regards Chinese New Poetry at that specific historical period could be deemed as “avant-garde”. Such poetic progresses include but not limited to the unprecedented radical shifts of poetic forms as the methodological innovation rather than the overhaul of subject matter, inasmuch the universal poetic emotions and feelings have been dealt with in the ancient Chinese poems in an exhaustive manner. In short, the historical mission of establishing new Chinese poetic paradigm and norm along with poetry translation is accentuated. To sum up, the paper explores how the poetic legitimacy of Chinese New Poetry were established by the poet-translators with their respective contributions. Most importantly, the paper explores into the socio-cultural and ideological contexts pertinent to the translation of foreign poetry and Chinese poetic evolutions from a cosmopolitan perspective. Consequently, the findings conclude that translation of foreign poetry has served for, instead of directly creating, Chinese New Poetry in terms of literary, political, and cultural advancement.

Chinese New Poetry proves to be a congruent representation of poetic paradigm shift originated and accelerated through the glocalization process through the lens of cosmopolitanism. Delineated from the premise that “cultural politics governs the evolution of aesthetic preferences” (Sun, 2018a, p. 216), this paper re-examines the political significance of Chinese New Poetry as a poetic paradigm change for the consolidation of the Chinese society then by starting to build solidarity within the literary circle. Chinese New Poetry reflects its dynamic integration into the world literature externally as well as demonstrating the consistent inheritance and innovation of Chinese poetry internally. Cosmopolitanism sheds new light on the avant-garde spirit of Chinese New Poetry, which is pertaining to the poetic transformation phenomena of both literary and political significance in China in the early 20th century.

Acknowledgements

I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Shuying Liang

Shuying Liang is a PhD student at University of Macau and her research interests include translation studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies. At present, she is interested to explore research topics related to Chinese New Poetry in the wider context of world literature via translation activities. Email: [email protected]