Gu Cheng (Chinese Poets since 1949)

2024

This book considers the contemporary political formula of the “Chinese Dream” in the light of the treatment of dreams in Chinese literary history since antiquity. Sinic literary and philosophical texts document an extensive spectrum of dream possibilities: starting with Zhuangzi’s eminent butterfly dream, an early example of the inversion of the dreamer’s reality, through to confusing visions of the spiritual realm. In classical dramas, novels, and ghost stories, dreams see the earthly realm enter into conflict with higher realms of existence. They indulge the dreamer’s quest for sensual pleasures, but then spiritual beings relentlessly harvest the dreamers’ life energy. Dreams promise spiritual enlightenment – only to abandon the dreamer in a state of utter confusion. In the early twentieth century, traditional dream knowledge is abandoned in favour or Freudian episodes of sexual repression. In this context, the collective national dream emerges as an unexpected vehicle of the pained individual’s hope for national rejuvenation.

Chinese Literature Today, 2019

These four poems by Mi Jialu show a personal contemplation on the torturous human condition inflicted by historical traumas, environmental crisis, and diasporic alienation. Through a gaze of a surreal lens, the poet seeks to express the inexpressible haunted by memory, dreams, and ghosts. With a more psychological quest, the poet embarks on a journey into the heart of darkness for self-redemption and spiritual illumination.

Chinese Literature Today, 2011

Few Chinese poets who have come to prominence after the Misty Poetry phenomenon of the early to mid 1980s have cast a longer shadow than Wang Jiaxin. Wang, Professor of Literature at Renmin university (one of China’s most prestigious), is not only a major poet, but also an important editor and translator, and an influential literary critic. Because he is known for his uniquely cosmopolitan, existential style, many in China associate him with the so-called intellectual school, a term that would likely signal an “academic” flavor to most Western readers—but this simply would not be an accurate assessment ofWang’s poetic style. Through this interview with sinologist John Crespi, readers will gain a strong sense of Wang’s intimately subjective yet radically cosmopolitan poetics as he discusses the work of Western poets from Paul Celan to Emily Dickens, the relationship between writing and translating poetry, and the existential dislocation of physical/external locations and the psychological/ interior space of poets, such as himself, who have composed a significant body of work outside their homeland.

Der Traum der roten Kammer : die erzählerische Komplexität eines chinesischen Meisterwerks , 2019

in D. Dubrovskaya (ed.), Искусство Востока и Восток в искусстве: от традиционных форм к современным арт-практикам (Art in the East and East in Arts: From Traditional Forms to Contemporary Art Practices), Moscow: IVRAN, 2022

This paper focuses on the artistic function of selected Chinese works as poetic narrations of historical events during China’s Republican era (1912-49). These snapshots of Chinese society during the early decades of the twentieth century illustrate how modern Chinese intellectuals reacted to modernity and to the unusual different faces of their newly established motherland: warlords’ power, the apparent monotonous job of a content postman of Beijing delivering unanticipated messages and the semi-chaotic look of modern Harbin. The three poems of Wen Yiduo and Feng Zhi are taken here as suggestive artistic depictions of a crucial time in Chinese history when young intellectuals had no choice but to come to terms with the demanding challenges of a fast-changing nation.

Ocaso Press Ltda., 2024

Chinese poetry rhymed, scanned and followed a host of demanding rules. To bring over that character, and aided by books now available to the general reader, I have tried to do four things in these translations. The first is to create faithful renderings that stand on their own as acceptable poems. The second is to give some indication of the different Chinese poetry styles and genres. The third is to convey the characters and personalities of the individual poets. And the fourth is to provide the social background to Chinese poetry, the context in which poetry was written and understood.

The Chinese aesthetic concept “jing 境” is one of the most important subjects for the studies of traditional Chinese poetry and literary criticism in both China and the West. Based on a brief survey of the English translations and interpretations of this concept offered by some leading scholars in the United States and Canada, this essay aims to reconsider jing by discussing its inside subjectivity and outside objectivity. From this point of view, this essay approaches Zhang Yan’s 张炎 (1248-1320?) qingkong清空, a concept about the transparent poetic world of jing, and also argues with Wang Guowei 王国维 (1877-1927), who is the most influential literary critic on the concept of jing, about his criticism of Jiang Kui 姜夔 (1155?-1221?) on the very topic of jing.

This paper is a structuralist analysis of narrative poetry in the Book of Songs (Shijing), focusing on poems 245 and 58. It argues about the lose of narrativity and the rise of lyricism in early Chinese literature.

International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) Volume 3 Issue 5, ISSN (Online): 2319-7064., 2014

A man that was not appreciated during his life time has risen to be one of the greatest poets of Chinese History. His works echoes the uneasiness and fretfulness that overwhelmed the Chinese society at his time while living during the era of disunity of the six dynasties. His ability to put his thoughts about nature, society, sages and agriculture expresses a beautiful and vivid literary work that other poets has looked up to and admired. This work sets out to examine the life and great works of Tao Yuan-Ming (365-427) while living through a life of reclusion was able to transcend his thoughts into poetic works that stands in modern time; it also sets to analyze his profound thoughts within the era of his lifestyle to understand his linguistic conceptualizations.