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Arts & Communication

ARTICLE
Chinese esthetics through language in poetry:

A comparative study of the Chinese wényán and
modern báihuà

Zhe Feng *, Weiyi Wang , and Gerald Cupchik 2
1
2
1 Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2 Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

China was greatly transformed in its encounters with the imperial West in the 19 and
th
20 centuries, where its ways and traditions that were authoritative for thousands of
th
years were challenged and pushed to evolve toward modernity. Among things that
were made to change, the classical written Chinese – wényán – was replaced by the
modern báihuà, prioritizing efficient information transformation over the expression
of semantic and esthetic depth. However, classical Chinese esthetics continued
to inspire modern Chinese literati, in their exploration and discovery of means to
express their Chineseness in a modern reality. Through examining the literary form
of poetry, this study investigated the differential characteristics of the classical and
modern Chinese esthetics through the appreciation of classical and contemporary
Chinese poems, as mediated by the written languages: wényán and modern báihuà.
Presented with four comparable pairs of classical and contemporary poems, 48
*Corresponding author:
Zhe Feng participants indicated their preference and rated their poem-reading experience
(zhe.feng@mail.utoronto.ca) based on language esthetics, imaginativeness, precision, complexity of imageries,
Citation: Feng Z, Wang W, profundity of meaning, and the intensity of emotions and resonance elicited.
Cupchik G. Chinese esthetics Compared to contemporary poems, classical poems were perceived as significantly
through language in poetry: more beautiful in their language, more imaginative, more precise, more complex
A comparative study of the
Chinese wényán and modern in their imagery, more profound in their meanings, and more effective in eliciting
báihuà. Arts & Communication. emotions and resonance. Reasons for poem type preference suggested that classical
2024;2(1):1825. and contemporary poems were both appreciated for their differential expressions of
https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1825
the highest Chinese esthetic standard – the White Bì (贲), through effortless precision
Received: September 13, 2023 or purity.
Accepted: November 28, 2023
Published Online: February 15, 2024 Keywords: Chinese poetry; Poetry appreciation; Chinese language; Esthetics
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 1. Introduction
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, poetry is “literature that evokes a concentrated
1
provided the original work is
properly cited. imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language
chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.” Central to the creation and
Publisher’s Note: AccScience appreciation of poetry, language is a tool that evolves. It unifies and diverges, reflecting
Publishing remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in and responding to the demands of its users at a given time. As deftly put by Cooper, “we
published maps and institutional have to move from style to style or from variety to variety to suit our communicative
affiliations.
Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1825