dc.description.abstract | Bei-Dao started to write Modern Chinese Poetry since 1970. At the first stage of writing, Bei-Dao intended to create some peaceful pastoral poems. But when he inspired with Existentialism which circulated through underground literary circles, Bei-Dao turned the romantic notions about poetry into the though about changing the Chinese society. In 1973, after writing the poem “Let Me Tell You, World,” Bei-Dao tried to introspect himself and rebel the society through writing. In the following years the poems “An End or a Beginning—for Yu Luoke,” “Declaration—for Yu Luoke,” and “The Answer” had created, these poems arouse “A Generation” from befuddled life.
Until the middle of 1980, The Chinese poem circle started on discussed about “misty poetry” (Meng-Long Shi), the poems which Bei-Dao wrote in 1970’ still considered as a rebel. However, Bei-Dao’s life changed by family member’s death in 1976, the writing of poems turned into sorrowful and grievous. The poet’s attempt on poetic language still remained in Bei-Dao’s coming poems.
In the end of 1978, not only the first publication of the ‘unofficial’ literary magazine called Jintian (Today), but also the year which Bei-Dao set an end for his first stage of poem writing. While the magazine Jintian was famed for Chinese young man, Bei-Dao was trying to write some love poems. Bei-Dao who always pays close attention to the Chinese Society, at least, choose to made his poems to claim for the freedom and a human’s responsibility for the world. Nevertheless, after The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Bei-Dao was exiled by Chinese government. Since Bei-Dao started his exile at 1989, he insisted on writing poems in Chinese and used his mother tongue to consider the relationship between himself and his homeland—China. Through poems, we could get close to Bei-Dao’s mind and catch more clues about how Bei-Dao thinks while writing in exile. Even though the words which Bei-Dao had gave in speeches or interviews could also let people understand the state of Bei-Dao’s exilic life, we could understand Bei-Dao’s thought more by reading his poems. We could find a purity poet’s world without other conditions’ interrupting. Therefore, all the discourse which came from Bei-Dao’s poem could be solved from this foundation.
This essay attempts to go back to Bei-Dao’s creations, figure out the quality in poet’s works and discussing further more about Bei-Dao’s establishment in modern Chinese poetry.
| en_US |