Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 5, 2023

 

Affinity to the People and the Issue of the Canonization of Chinese Red Poetry

(Abstract)

 

Li Yuchun

 

In the Chinese context, “red poetry” refers to poetry marked by affinity to the people that was created by revolutionary and progressive writers under the leadership or direction of the Communist Party of China. The canonization of red poetry is a full literary communication activity including production (creation), distribution and circulation (dissemination), and consumption (reception). From the perspective of reception aesthetics, the classical works of red poetry are transmitted in oral form, with a definite and a shared mode of reception, so they feature a high affinity to the people. The canonization of red poetry has borne fruit since 1949, but it also faces the gaming of two aesthetic discourses: affinity to the masses and modernity. The masses of the people and professional readers with a people’s stance tend to stand up for red poetry and defend it using the criterion of affinity to the people, while elite professional readers usually reject or devalue red poetry classics from the perspective of the aesthetics of modernity. This is evident in various literature textbooks and literary anthologies and in the practice of literary criticism. However, affinity to the people and modernity are not incompatible; they are at the same time conflicting and integrated. In the New Era we need to rebuild a people’s aesthetics with Chinese modernity and to reconstruct a new path for the canonization of red poetry. On the premise of adhering to affinity to the people in literature and art, we should dismantle the dichotomies of left and right, elegant and popular, and old and new; broaden the path for the canonization of red poetry; and effectively deal with the dialectical relationship between poetry’s aesthetic of affinity to the people and modernity.