“Misty Poetry” as a reflection of the nature of Chinese literature of the “New Period” (second half of the 20th century)

Abstract

The subject of the study is the formation of “Misty Poetry” trend in Chinese literature of the late 20^th century. The study aims at the disclosure of the dynamics of “Misty Poetry” within modernist paradigm against the backdrop of Chinese literature of the “New Period”. The method is grounded in identification of key modernist poetics categories, perceived and transformed in the versification practice of Misty Poetry. Sociocultural contextualization method is employed to locate Misty Poetry in the post Cultural Revolution aesthetic and ideological context of China. The study results cover the lyrical attempt at a modernistic search for identity in Chinese literature of the “New Period”. The pursuit of self and vaster category of identity is considered and comprehensively analyzed through the array of representative poetic texts (Zhang Ming, Meng Lang, Bei Dao, Duo Duo). “Misty Poetry” marked the beginning of the “New Period” in the history of modern Chinese literature. The trend demonstrated qualitative changes in the ideological foundations and artistic practice of the new poetry of China in the 20th century. “Misty Poetry” became a kind of aesthetic protest against the ideological and artistic clichés of the preceding cultural-historical era. The concept of “self” within the paradigm of Misty Poetry is corroborated to be perceived as an independent consciousness, not dictated by any ideology or doctrine, disclosed through the means of a poet’s internal thoughts depictions, both conscious and subconscious. The paper results demonstrate the transformative potential of the Misty Poetry trend poetics on prosodic level, level of stylistic imagery and genre specificity. The paper interpretative results explore the significance of the “Misty Poetry” in the way that it revived and gave a new impetus to the further development to the humanistic orientation of Chinese poetry. The novelty is connected with the aesthetic means of territorializing the marginal space that provides the poet and the poetic protagonist with a critical distance from the dominant discourse of the political-cultural establishment of post Cultural Revolution China are disclosed. The paper concludes the Misty Poetry trend drew attention to the subjective beginning in art and opened the discourse for an active search for a new artistic reality in which the legacy of classical poetry of China, the best humanistic traditions of the new poetry of the early 20th century and the modernist features of Western poetry were combined.