Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2019

The Modern Transformation of Traditional Chinese Poetic Education and Its Contemporary Legacy

(Abstract)

Fang Chang’an

With the May Fourth New Culture Movement, education in poetry lost its erstwhile position as an orthodox Confucian tradition and fell from sight, no longer visible in conscious activity and the discourse system. But it never disappeared; modern poets inherited its political ethic and spirit, and inspired by the New Culture’s enlightenment and the revolutionary mobilization of society, they deconstructed the Confucian classic, The Book of Songs. Traditional poetic education thus lost the master copy on which it was based, clearing a space for New Culture enlightenment and the appearance on the scene of New Poetry. This led to the construction of a system of poetics featuring modern poetic education. In the context of the attack on tradition, such education could only participate indirectly in the construction of New Poetry courtesy of modern cultural enlightenment and the revolutionary mobilization of society. This meant that the new poets failed to deal with the relationship between the native tradition and the experience of Western poetry, the relationship between the creation of New Poetry and indigenous historical writing, etc. This narrowed the space for modern New Poetry’s cultivation of the personality and cultural construction. Today, we should take a stand on national cultural self-confidence and reexamine the poetic education tradition, excavate its essence, interpret its value, deal correctly with the relationship between inheriting and creating, and construct a contemporary poetic education culture infused with a consciousness of historical responsibility.