Chin Tzu-hao and the Establishment of Symbolism Genealogy in Early Postwar Modern Taiwanese Poetry

• Main Authors: Che-Wei Pai, 白哲維
• Other Authors: 解昆樺
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/548hev

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 中國文學系所 === 106 === Chin Tzu-Hao, Chi Hsien, and Chung Ting-Wen are called “the Three Patriarchs of the Poetry World” among modern poets in post-war Taiwan. During his school years, Chin Tzu-Hao was influenced by works of Chinese predecessors and critics such as Li Chin-Fa, Chou Tso-Jen, Mu Mu-Tien and others, as well as by the poems of 19th century Western poets like Charles Pierre Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry and Arthur Rimbaud, etc., thus acquiring the symbolist writing style and creative method, to absorb the essence of symbolist theory. Through his hard-working practice and innovation, Chin Tzu-Hao became the supporter and promoter of symbolism in Taiwan’s modern poetry world. On the one hand, Chin Tzu-Hao absorbed Western literary theory, and on other hand he avoided complete horizontal transplanting, so as to develop a symbolist theory of poetry suitable for the modern poetry world in Taiwan. Chin Tzu-Hao understood that in the process of symbolism’s dissemination in various countries, the national sentiments, social factors and literary traditions would interact with original features of the theory, so that the Western theory could take root in Taiwan. In order to clarify the connotation and essence of modern poetry and explain the development of symbolism, Chin Tzu-Hao once fought in the press with Chi Hsien, Su Hsueh-Lin, Layman and Yen Hsi, etc. in the late 1950s. In addition to the clarification of the theory, Chin Tzu-Hao served as the head teacher of the poetry class at the Chinese Literary and Artistic Correspondence School in the 1950s, guiding students to write poems, to actively promote the establishment of modern poetry in Taiwan. Within more than 10 years in Taiwan, Chin Tzu-Hao published three poetry collections, “Poetry of the Sea”, “Sunflower” and “Gallery”, showing the change in his poetic style, and the practice of his own poetic theory, sowing the seeds in the modern poetry world of Taiwan, to affect the later generations that learn modern poetry. After the early passing of Chin Tzu-Hao, influenced by many factors such as the subject selection of modern poetry textbooks and ideology, in the field of Taiwan’s modern poetry history and speech power, Chin Tzu-Hao’s poems and poetic theory once faced the threat of marginalization, and the symbolism introduced by Chin Tzu-Hao was also less often discussed in Taiwan. Fortunately, over the past decade or so, experts and scholars have repeatedly reviewed and discussed the relevant materials, poets and poems of modern poetry history in Taiwan in the 1950s, and the name of Chin Tzu-Hao has been brought up again. However, the current research results are mostly the process of debates among Chin Tzu-Hao, Chi Hsien, Su Hsueh-Lin and others, as well as some poems by Chin Tzu-Hao. There are still some shortcomings in the introduction of symbolism’s poetic theory by Chin Tzu-Hao, the introduction of symbolist works by Western poets, the debates among Chin Tzu-Hao, Layman and Yen Hsi, and the discussion of Chin Tzu-Hao in the teaching and dissemination of modern poetry, etc. The author tries to sort out the development of the modern poetry world in Taiwan in the 1950s; the origin of symbolism and its development in Taiwan; Chin Tzu-Hao’s attitude of acceptance and way of understanding towards symbolism, and his teaching and dissemination of modern poetry; the process of Chin Tzu-Hao’s participation thrice in the debates of modern poetry in the 1950s; his poems from the period when he was in mainland China and his arrival to Taiwan with the Nationalist government until his passing as proof; and to briefly cite a few examples of works of poets of the Blue Star Poetry Society to give a concise analysis and contrast with Chin Tzu-Hao’s poetic theory of symbolism and poems, using a neutral perspective on the history of Taiwanese modern poetry in the 1950s.