| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 國文教學碩士班 === 92 === This study aims to combine both the Chinese and the Western theories of aesthetics, modern poetry, and pedagogy, to further construct a body of theory of Aesthetic Teaching of Modern Poetry. My primary goal is to equip the students with the abilities and attitude in poetry appreciation and composition. The secondary goal is to cultivate the students to have an open, all-embracing attitude toward art, and the ultimate goal is to imbue the students with highly-sophisticated humanistic thinking. Therefore, the Aesthetics of Modern Poetry is defined as the study of the metaphysical dialectics between modern poetry and aesthetics, the sense and sensibility of beauty, and how both can be reconciled and practiced in the spiritual and the real world.
Following the introductory chapter, Chapter II aims to clarify the meanings and the functions of Aesthetic Teaching: its meanings lie in that the instructor develops the students'' sense and sensibility to aesthetics by explaining, appreciating certain pieces of works, and by creating a literary work. Its functions are as follows: the first is to differentiate between sensuality and gender difference, encouraging the students to relieve their sensuality in a positive way, and promoting a mutual respect between the two sexes. The second is to enrich the humanistic thinking and the capacity in art appreciating, relying both on comprehension and sensibility. The third is to realize aesthetics into daily life, freeing aesthetics from over-emotionalizing and over-moralizing. The last is therefore to sublimate the personal onto a perfect state transcendental of physical restraints.
In Chapter III I discuss the cognitive and psychological aspects of aesthetics. The cognitive aspect concerns the individual’s self-consciousness, that is, the individual can attain the pleasure of aesthetics only when he or she is aware of his or her own existence, and acquires the principles to proceed toward the goal. On the psychological side, emphasis is put upon the formation of the sensibility of beauty, by means of deepening reactions, single-sense stimulus, and cooperative training. Concerns also given to the emotion building-up of the self, between the self and others, and between the self and the environment. The approaches to imagination analysis include free-association, simile, and hyperbole, while the comprehension analysis cultivates students’ capacity to appreciate the external forms and representations of a work of art, to understand its innate connotations and themes and how to gain pleasure from the act of appreciating. The appreciation of the external forms and representations can be attained through the training of aesthetic notions, with a particular situation provided. The appreciation of the innate connotations and themes can be approached by the method of “bamboo sprout peeling,” with which students can learn from practice with pleasure and participate in a long-term act of aesthetics.
Chapter IV moves to the three characteristics of the Aesthetics of Modern Poetry: pluralism, différance, and metamorphosis. Pluralism concerns the multiple-faceted, frequently changing forms of modern poetry, congenial to a contemporary temperament that embraces freedom and the breaking-down of conventions. Différance is manifested in the sense that the intensity of the writing and its significance are open to any possibility. Metamorphosis can be discussed in terms of content and form. The metamorphosis of content is investigated by the sample poem “The Window,” in which a single imagery is imbued with various connotations, such as idleness, gazing into the distance, perspective, waiting, isolation, and the metaphors on craving, searching for an exit, and the symbol of time and place. The metamorphosis of form is examined through the structure of modern poetry and the writing techniques, such as the multiple-layered structure, the adoption of the classical “Fu” structure, paradox, defamiliarization, discontinuous narrative, disorder, and collage.
Chapter V focuses on how different schools of thinking and discourses have influenced the Aesthetics of Modern Poetry, such as Romanticism, Symbolism, Realism, and Modernism, among which Modernism plays the dominant role. Therefore, this study also briefly examines other schools of thinking that nourish in the light of, or, as counteract to, Modernism, including the Decadents, Expressionism, Aestheticism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Postmodernism.
Chapter VI investigates the theme and structure of modern poetry and their interrelationship with the teaching of aesthetics, classified into ten sub-themes: short poems, series poems, prose poems, figure poems, long poems, odes, surrealist poetry, urban poetry, pastoral poetry, and postmodern poetry. Short poems are furthered divided into the lyrics, the narrative, and the philosophical/didactic. Series poem are discussed in terms of subject matter and in terms of the title. Figure poems are categorized into the following three: the combination of poetry and painting, the insertion of signs into the poetry, and the poetry totally visualized. Long poems include the lyrics, the thematic narrative, and a combination of the two above, and meanwhile epic is discussed in its own right. Odes cover a wide range of subject matters, but this study concentrates mainly on the correspondence between the inner emotion and the outside landscape, the search for an exit, the quest for the archetype, and the existentialist dialectics. Urban poetry falls into the three categories: critical irony, perplexed paradox, and wishful longings. As for the pastoral poetry, intense focuses are put onto the issues of the love for and the beauty of the land, the congenial coexistence between man and nature, and the accusation of the destruction of the environment. The postmodern poetry is roughly labeled as the dominant postmodernist and the recessive postmodernist. The dominant postmodernist poets tend to embrace the belief “Art for art’s sake,” or rather write in a playful manner. The recessive postmodernist poets, under their constantly-changing play of forms, still maintain the classical belief that art should give a lesson on life.
Chapter VII investigates deeper into the aesthetic structure of modern poetry. Sections 1-4 talk about the basic principles of aesthetic judgment, i.e. diction, imagery, rhetoric, and syntax. In Section 5 I arrive at the discussion of rhythm (the musicality.) In each section, the aesthetic principles are listed first, followed by a discussion of their practical application to teaching. The aesthetic requirements of diction are: the adequate emphasis on the movement to fully describe the physical image, the vivid description of the imagery to capture the meanings transmitted, and the keen capture of the spirit to build up the emotions. Relevant teaching activities include finding the keyword and cloze test. As for the imagery, in the aesthetic principles I discuss the usages of parallelism, contrary, and repetition, and the activities practiced in classroom include free association practice and the completion of couplets. Following the two above, in the section of rhetoric, the works of Jen Chou-yu are analyzed, accompanied by the practice of parody and crescendo intensifying. The aesthetics of syntax discusses the five methods. The first is the sophistication in tone, syntax, and structure. The second is the condensation, which works through a precise use of words, the combination of sentences, the intertwining of different settings, and a mixture of literary language and colloquialism. The third is hyperbaton, and the fourth is the westernization of the Chinese language, including the allusions of certain loaned words or phrases and other forms of borrowing. The last method discussed is the narrative tendency of poetry. The teaching activities that can be practiced include rewriting poetry and free placement of imagery (collage). To investigate the musicality of poetry, I analyze the repetitive, the crescendo, and the rhymed pattern of poetry, for which the teacher can work on the stress on certain words, the settlement of beats, and the building-up of aura in the teaching activities.
This study comes to the following three conclusions: one is that the pedagogy of the Aesthetic of Modern Poetry can be conducted on both ways round and can also be practiced under different categories following different stages. Another observation is that it should well grasp any opportunity that can be imbued with educational implications. The last one is that its practice should possess a vision that grows day by day.
The appendix is a teaching plan on modern poetry. Briefly discussing the theoretical background of poetry teaching, it mainly records the teaching procedures and analysis of those procedures on the belief that the researcher’ personal teaching experience can verify the theories investigated in this study.
|
|---|
