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A Study of Yang Mu’s Late Poems: Focusing on Their Aesthetic Characteristics
The Journal of Chinese Cultural Studies
2018, (39),
pp.241-268
DOI :10.18212/cccs.2018..39.011
Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
Research Area : Chinese Culture
DOI :10.18212/cccs.2018..39.011
Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
Research Area : Chinese Culture
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The purpose of this study is to illustrate the aesthetic characteristics of Yang Mu’s 楊牧(1940~ ) late poems, especially focusing on his post-1968 works. Although he adopted the pen name Yang Mu in 1972, his fourth collection of poems The Legends 傳說, which was published in 1971, was a turning point in his poetry both in thematic devices and in stylistic endeavors. In comparison with his pre-1966 poems, the poems in The Legends display more than somewhat epiclike qualities with the use of not only dramatic monologue but also weaving a narrative, even in the short poetry. At the same time, the aesthetic characteristics appeared in The Legends has continued to affect his later poems up until his fourteenth collection of poems, Songs Long and Short 長短歌行(2013). This study contains four parts, together with introduction and conclusion. Part One brings out the question how we classify Yang Mu’s whole poetry according to period. Generally, literary critics classify his poetry in two periods: the early period and the later period. And what distinguishes the early period from the later period? Part Two examines his fourth collection of poetry The Legends and revaluates his distinctive aesthetic qualities with two poems “Jizi of Yanling Hangs Up His Sword延陵季子掛劍” and “Screen屏風 .” Part Three analyzes his two famous poems “Solitude孤獨”(1976) and “Someone Asks Me about Justice and Righteousness有人問我公理和正義的問題”(1984), especially focusing on his best known style of nostalgia with the existential(in the case of “Solitude”) and his political engagement that was seen as an allusion to the Kuomintang’s entrenched discrimination against the native Taiwanese(in the case of “Someone Asks Me about Justice and Righteousness”). Part Four concludes that his brilliant poetic achievement with classical Chinese imagination and literal tone as well as experiments of Western poetic techniques is superb and has a special significance in that his poems will be served as a useful guide for his successors.
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