Taiwan Poetry and Poetics of Exile, 1895-1987

• Main Author: 閔秋英
• Other Authors: 吳彩娥
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/05623665562219122342

博士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 國文學系 === 98 === Taiwan Poetry and Poetics of Exile, 1895-1987 Abstract The creation of literature is greatly influenced by its environment. Taiwan literature has inherited the Han culture; based on the particular geographical, historical, and humanistic situations, it has come to its multi-faceted beauty. Today, theme is more treasured than form in the research of literature, and the former functions better in revealing the historical features. “Diaspora” and “Transnationality” are two special features in the 20th century, and the time from the Japanese invasion of Taiwan in 1895 to the End of Martial Law in 1987 proves to be the conspicuous periods of Taiwan’s Diaspora and Transnationality. With such backgrounds, Taiwan poetry is rich in the “exilic consciousness,” which serves as the heart of Taiwan poetics of exile. How a poet uses the “exilic writing” to seek the “spiritual homeland” and thus attends the highest aesthetic horizon is the main concern of this thesis; such concern, therefore, extends to the contents of poetry and the perspectives of poetics. Taiwan poetry and poetics of exile are changing with historical times. This thesis will define the span (1895-1987) by selecting four poets of different generations, Qiu Feng-Jia (丘逢甲), Shi Zhong-Ying (石中英), Luo Fu (洛夫), and Chien Cheng-Chen (簡政珍), to illustrate the various types of exilic writing. Taiwan poetry and poetics of exile reveals, in different stages, the phenomena of “the struggle between getting perfect alone and with others,” “the historical knot for being a migrant or a preceding dynasty person,” “the depression caused by the cultural motherland dislocated,” “the intellectuals’ confusion and sense of loss,” “the dialect between being and meaning of life,” and others. Qiu Feng-Jia, who returned to the mainland China after he failed the defiance of Japanese invasion, reveals the typical exile of a preceding dynasty person. Shi Zhong-Ying, who was unwilling to be confined in a colonial world and thus heading somewhere, represents the exile that looks for a new life. Under the influence of traditional poetics and the historical times, the two classical poets have shown Qing’s historical realism and the multi-cultural symbolic vision. In 1949 when the government moved to Taiwan, Luo Fu was a reluctant young self-concerned wanderer, but in his old age, he turned to the self-exile that aimed at “aesthetics of diaspora.” Chien Cheng-Chen, an intellectual seeker, explored the spiritual exile and constantly questioned “being of life.” The two modern poets have reached the peak of poetics, respectively, by their separate exilic writings that root in different generations. As the time of 1895-1987 saw the changes from the classical to the modern and also from the last year of Qing dynasty to the republic government, so we saw, from the classical poets Qiu Feng-Jia and Shi Zhong-Ying to the modern poets Luo Fu and Chien Cheng-Chen, the progress of the exilic writing of Taiwan poetry, which starts with self-exposition and goes to the large-scaled narration that touches history, and which begins at the traditional Chinese poetics and then shifts to that which combines the modern western one. This progress proves to be a rare incident in the history of Chinese poetry and serves as an aesthetic achievement that reveals Taiwan poetry’s uniqueness. Keywords: Taiwan Literature, Literature of Exile, Classical Poetry, Modern Poetry, Qiu Feng-Jia, Shi Zhong-Ying, Luo Fu, and Chien Cheng-Chen