Speaker: Cheng Yu-yu, National Taiwan University

This talk will be given in Mandarin.

Once Chinese poetry becomes “modern poetry,” its so-called modernity must be discussed in the context of the modernity of “Chinese language” itself. From the late Qing and early Republican periods on, when confronted with the invasion of such things as new lexicon, new academic disciplines, alphabetic languages, and English grammar, the Chinese language, Chinese characters, and the cultural tradition to which it belongs have never ceased responding to and reflecting upon such foreign forces. In examining this “modernizing” process of Chinese poetry, which progressed from the question of “how to speak to the new world” to that of “how to reestablish a new relationship with the world,” one cannot overlook the new ways of thinking of the Chinese language that emerged from and were constructed by various disciplines, including grammatology, philology, phonology, psychology, and rhetoric studies. And in discussing “modern poetry,” one should not disregard how figures such as Ma Jianzhong, Liu Shipei, Huang Ren, Huang Kan, Tang Yue, Hu Pu’an, Chen Wangdao, and Li Anzhai, as well as Chen Shih-Hsiang and Kao Yu-kung, have consciously sought the basis upon which the Chinese language and Chinese characters depend for their existence and adaption to change. What lie at the very core of this basis are the “speakability” and the “manifestability” of the Chinese language. These concepts were engaged in a tug-of-war with the tumultuous modern vision prevalent since the late Qing, exhibiting a well-matched rivalry that cannot be ignored.

當漢語詩成為「『現代』詩」，這所謂「現代質地」（modernity）還是必須回到「漢語」的現代性來討論。晚清民初以來，面對新語詞、新學科、拼音文字、英語文法這些如同外來侵襲的事物，漢語、漢字及其所在的文化系統，從未停止回應與思考；從「如何向新世界開口發聲」到「如何重建與世界的新關係」，漢語詩「現代化」的進程裡，不應該忽視當時由語法學、文字學、音韻學、心理學、修辭學等不同領域出發而建構的漢語新思維，討論「現代詩」不應該忽略如馬建忠、劉師培、黃人、黃侃、唐鉞、胡樸安、陳望道、李安宅，以至於陳世驤或高友工等人，是如何自覺的去發現漢語、漢字所以存有與應變的依據，而其中允為核心的是漢語的「可發聲性」與「可體現性」，正與晚清以來高張喧騰的現代視線相互拉鋸，呈現不可輕忽的抗衡態勢。

Professor Yu-yu Cheng, Academician of Academia Sinica, the Chair Professor of Chinese literature at National Taiwan University, is devoted to developing pioneering and interdisciplinary interpretations of Chinese classical literature by combining the Eastern and Western humanistic thoughts. She enjoys an international reputation for her contribution to the discourses of space, body, and Chinese lyrical tradition. Cheng has published numerous books, including “Literary Ch’i” in Six Dynasties Literary Theory, The Situation Aesthetics in Six Dynasties, Gender and Nation: Discourses of Encountering Sorrow in Han and Jin Rhapsodies, The Poet in Text and Landscape: Mutual Definition of Self and Landscape, Metaphor: Crossing Categorical Boundaries in Ancient Chinese Literature, and Gesture and Language: A New Approach to the Revolution of a Poetic Tradition, etc.

Presented via Zoom.
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