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Arts & Communication Esthetics in wényán and modern báihuà poetry

words used, their relative position and purpose in the company (qún, 群), to express grievances (yuàn, 怨): near
sentence which have implications for their underlying at hand, (it will teach you how) to serve your father, and
meanings, and the linguistic and social contexts. Wényán is (looking) further, (how) to serve your sovereign.” “Poetry”
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capable of conveying more information and more complex here, as referred to by Confucius, is more strictly that of A
meaning in a more compact space, often described as “ Book of Songs (Shījīng, 诗经) from which classical Chinese
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言简而意繁 (expressing complex meaning in simple poetry evolved to The Songs of the South (Chǔcí, 楚辞) and
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words; transliterated as yanjian er yifan).” Texts can often culminated in Tang poetry (Tángshī, 唐诗). For classical
be constructed to contain several layers of meanings at the Chinese poets and critics, “poetry is meant to express
same time, all of which are intended for appreciation. one’s elusive thoughts and feelings through concrete and
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Modern báihuà enjoys similarly flexible grammar but tangible reality in the physical world,” the highest esthetic
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to a lesser extent compared to wényán. The popularization ideal of which is xiángqiē (详切), that is, to meticulously
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of báihuà, where wényán incorporated the characteristics and precisely depict the artistic object in its unity.
of vernacular Chinese, made more use of, among other In composing a classical Chinese poem, the poet first
things, prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions, to responds to the object (yìngwù, 应物), then embodies the
object (tǐwù, 体物), and finally achieving a state of chènwù
meet the demand in everyday application to specify (称物), where what is expressed precisely matches what is
time, position, and logical relations. However, compared intended for the object. Therefore, to fully appreciate a
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to Indo-European languages, modern báihuà retained classical Chinese poem, one closely examines the union
many features that value flexibility over rigidity, ambiguity
over explicitness. It remains an aspect rather than tense between qíng (情, feeling) and jǐng (景, scene) – the
language which does not plot events on the axis of time poet’s thoughts, feelings, memories, and imaginations,
but relies on telling whether actions are completed or in and their contexts – which is crucial for bringing forth
its subtlety and the “living sensuousness.” The strokes
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progress. Its verbs do not have temporal tenses, and the in the ideogrammic wényán greatly aid a poet of classical
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expression of completion or progression relies on the use Chinese poetry to achieve xiángqiē, through three kinds
of auxiliary words such as 着, 了, and 过, or semantic of iconicities: lexical, syntactical, and textual iconicities.
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contexts. Similarly, the expression of plurality relies on More specifically, the monosyllabic characters in wényán
pronoun suffix such as “们”, quantifiers such as “个,” and exhibit imagic, syntactical, and diagrammatic similarities
context. Nouns and verbs do not transform depending on with the object, where the rendering of characters in a
plurality or singularity. Word class overlap is still prevalent poem visually resemble the object, closely align with a
in modern báihuà, especially in creative literature. narrative or descriptive sequence, and spatially represent
Expedited by its morphemic nature, new vocabularies can the relationship of events to be depicted. 8
be conveniently created using existing Chinese characters
and words to express novel concepts or a combination of As the Chinese written language evolved toward modern
several existing concepts. báihuà, the modernization of Chinese poetry also took
place. The “poetry revolution (诗界革命),” a term first
As the basic building blocks of literature, the unique used by Liang Qichao (梁启超, 1873 – 1929) and was later
characteristics of the written Chinese language – wényán recognized as a literary revolution that took place between
and modern báihuà – significantly contribute to the esthetics 1894 and 1897, played an important role in transforming the
qualities of its literary creations, such as poetry. According Chinese poetic language from the classical to the vernacular,
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to renowned Chinese painter Shi Hu (石虎,1942-2023), directly contributing to the realist May Fourth movement
Chinese characters are fundamental to Chinese poetry and which regarded classical Chinese poetry as an obstacle to
Chinese culture since “Dao exists in Chinese characters, China’s development toward modernity. Utilitarian and
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characters give birth to strokes, strokes give birth to sounds populist, its reformers experimented with modern literary
and meanings, and all things and all beings exist in the forms to serve their nationalist political agenda, aiming to
complicated strokes”. However, this is not the whole story. rescue China through “awaken[ing] patriotism and forg[ing]
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Since the classical period, Chinese poetry has evolved its a new national soul” in the face of foreign imperial threats.
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own standards of expression and appreciation. They sought liberation in the use of language and themes,
As evident in the Chinese expression wén yǐ zài dào and not to be restricted by traditional stylistic canons.
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(文以载道), traditional Chinese poetics considers poetry Characterized by “wanting to express the self, to express
as the vehicle of the “way.” Remarking on the functions wildly, to express directly, using a bold and urgent style as
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and purposes of poetry, Confucius commented, “Young a model,” a realist literary style gained popularity among
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men, why do you not study poetry? It can be used to Chinese intellectuals who, while praising its modernity,
inspire (xīng, 兴), to observe (guān, 观), to make you fit for gradually became dissatisfied by its crudeness and sought

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1825