Chapter 2: Understanding the Basic Elements of Modern Poetry

Preface: The Basic Elements of Modern Poetry: Language, Imagery, and Musicality

[1] The Medium of Expression in Modern Poetry: Language (including written characters and conventionally agreed-upon pictographic symbols)

[2] The Formal Components of Modern Poetry: Imagery and Musicality

[3] The Structure and Aesthetic Sense of Modern Poetry

Among literary genres, “poetry,” also known as “verse,” was traditionally distinguished by the saying, “What has rhyme is poetry; what lacks rhyme is prose,” thereby dividing written works into poetry and prose. Poetry, ci, songs, fu, and qu are all members of the family of verse. Although they differ slightly in form, their fundamental elements consist of three components: “language,” “imagery,” and “musicality.” Language is the “vehicle” of literary works. The “meaning” within language forms imagery, while the “sound” within language forms musicality. The structure of modern poetry is composed of sentences and stanzas organized in an organic manner, with the purpose of expressing emotions and conveying aesthetic experiences.

Section One: The Language of Modern Poetry

Taiwanese modern poetry has its roots in the West. In form, “modern poetry” stands in contrast to “old poetry” (classical poetry and lyrics). Modern poetry removes the formal constraints imposed upon poetry and is therefore also called “free verse”: restrictions regarding the number of lines, number of characters, tonal patterns, and rhyme schemes are abolished. In meaning, “modern poetry” stands in contrast to “ancient poetry.” It uses the language of modern people to write about the lives of modern people and is therefore also called “modernist poetry.”

Freedom in form and freedom in language have expanded both the scope of writing and the range of applications for modern poetry. In terms of form, various dimensional types have emerged, such as visual poetry, connect-the-dots poetry, fill-in-the-blank poetry, and so forth. In terms of language, the use of everyday speech (colloquial language), advertising slogans, and internet slang has continuously renewed the language of modern poetry, presenting an unprecedented flourishing scene of “keeping pace with the times.”

Unlike traditional poetry and lyrics, the author believes that the language of modern poetry should possess the following two essential qualities: “innovation” and “a sense of modernity.”

I. Innovation: Turning Decay into Wonder

The vivid impression that modern poetic language leaves upon readers lies in its innovation. Innovation contains two dimensions. The first is “vertical inheritance”: turning decay into wonder. The second is “horizontal transplantation”: forging a new poetic vocabulary.

Modern poets must break free from the syntax of traditional poets and lyricists and create new expressions through new forms and grammar. In other words, modern poets must take root in the soil of classical poetry and lyrics and grow new varieties of flowers from it.

Consider the poet Luo Fu’s “Jinlong Chan Temple”:

Ferns

Along the white stone steps

Chewed their way all the way down

This passage originates from Liu Yuxi’s “Inscription on the Humble Room,” specifically the line “the moss marks upon the steps are all green.” Through transformation and reinvention, the poet Luo Fu endowed it with an innovative modern significance.

II. A Sense of Modernity: Forging a New Vocabulary for Modern Poetry

The poet Luo Fu once said, “A poet is a magician of language.” This statement is not only an expectation for all poets but also a source of spiritual encouragement. Modern poets no longer face any formal constraints when writing poetry. At the same time, it is necessary for poets to become familiar with the use of rhetorical techniques and innovations in syntax, thereby forging new vocabulary imbued with a sense of modernity. In this way, modern poetry can “keep pace with the times,” remain closely connected to the pulse of the age, and fully express both the material and spiritual dimensions of modern life.

For example, in the poet Zheng Chouyu’s “Mistake”:

The clip-clop of my horse’s hooves is a beautiful mistake

I am not one who returns home, but merely a passerby

From then on, “a beautiful mistake” became a “new expression” frequently recited by a generation of literary youth.

Section Two: Imagery and Musicality in Modern Poetry

I. Imagery in Modern Poetry

(1) Seeking Images Through Meaning, Expressing Meaning Through Images

The imagery of modern poetry refers to the concrete images (xiang) and abstract meanings or principles (yi) conveyed when modern poetry uses language (words) as its medium. These symbolically meaningful vocabularies are selected and organized (arranged and combined) through the author’s ingenuity. In other words, concrete objects and images are used to express abstract emotions, ideas, and principles.

In poetic imagery, from the author’s perspective, meaning comes first: one seeks images through meaning and expresses meaning through images. From the reader’s perspective, images come first: one interprets meaning through images. Since modern poetry is free from formal constraints and linguistic limitations, its imagery may encompass anything from ancient times to the present, provided that it is written in the language and from the perspective of modern people. If one writes using the language of ancient people and the metrical forms of classical poetry and lyrics, one is merely imitating the ancients in “writing poems and composing lyrics”; such works are certainly not “modern poetry.” Conversely, if one uses the language (vocabulary) of modern people while employing the metrical forms of classical poetry and lyrics—for example, if terms such as “loser,” “otaku,” “dried-fish woman,” or “space shuttle” appear in regulated verse—then the work is still modern poetry and may be called metrical modern poetry.

(2) Formal Design and Methods of Expression in Imagery

From the perspective of methods for recording language, Chinese characters tend toward an ideographic method of recording language, whereas alphabetic writing systems tend toward a phonetic method. Among the “Six Principles of Chinese Character Formation,” pictographs, simple ideographs, and compound ideographs record Chinese characters through ideographic methods; phonetic loan characters record language through phonetic methods; and phono-semantic compound characters record language through a method that is partly ideographic and partly phonetic.

“Rhetoric” is the study of how to adjust linguistic methods of expression and design beautiful linguistic forms, enabling sentences to convey the author’s imagery accurately and vividly and to evoke resonance in readers through artistic techniques. As methods of expressing meaning, metaphor, irony, and hyperbole tend toward the “explanatory” (narrative) function. By contrast, such formal designs as repetition, gradation, and parallelism tend toward the “expressive” function. Their roles are clearly different.

When imagery expresses or re-presents emotions, thoughts, or aesthetic interests, what methods may be followed? This question must be explored by considering both “form and content,” both the external and the internal. Modern poetry is performed through imagery. The mode of performance proceeds from the outside inward, generally adopting certain formal designs as models (patterns), using particular regularized external forms to create the “atmosphere” through which imagery conveys its intended emotions, thoughts, or aesthetic interests. The author tentatively refers to this as the “formal method” (that is, “formal design”). As for the emotions, thoughts, or aesthetic interests themselves, the techniques employed and the manner in which they are expressed are the primary concerns of the “method of expressing meaning.”

(3) Understanding the Types of Imagery

1. The Author’s Classification

The imagery used in modern poetry mainly falls into two major categories: concrete (substantial) imagery and abstract (insubstantial) imagery. Concrete imagery is further divided into “generic imagery” and “specific imagery,” most of which appear as nouns. Abstract imagery is further divided into “action imagery,” “emotional imagery,” and “descriptive imagery,” most of which appear as verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.

(1) Concrete (Substantial) Imagery: Imagery that possesses an actual form and can be directly observed and experienced through the senses.

1. Generic Imagery: This type of imagery is usually presented in the form of a collective or plural entity, such as: Taipei City, Alishan, women, war, aesthetics, forests, stars, seeds, and so on.

2. Specific Imagery: Imagery that exists individually and possesses a specific physical entity, such as: the Taipei Metro, the Alishan Forest Railway, a ring, a giraffe, an azalea flower, the moon, Venus, a peanut kernel, a shadow, Mount Dabajian, and so forth.

(2) Abstract (Insubstantial) Imagery: Imagery that does not possess an actual physical form and can only be perceived and experienced through the senses. Classified according to category and part of speech:

1. Action Imagery: Mostly action verbs, such as: shooting, beating, rampaging, flooding, peeping, and so forth.

2. Emotional Imagery: Mostly emotional adverbs and adjectives. Adverbs are followed by verbs or their inverted forms: diligently (working), disdainfully (sneering), (so astonished as to be) dumbfounded, (thinking so hard as to become) dizzy and bewildered. Adjectives are followed by nouns: sorrowful (Juliet), lovable (Little Red Riding Hood).

3. Descriptive Imagery: Mostly sensory adjectives, such as: enchanting (young woman), fragrant (flowers), eerie (haunted house). A minority are adverbs of manner and emotional adverbs, such as: heroically (sacrificing oneself), bravely (charging forward), wild (thoughts) and random (fancies), (speaking with) saliva flying everywhere; gloomily (turning away), gracefully (leaving), and so forth.

2. Pure Imagery, Composite Imagery, and Symbolic Imagery: Fu, Bi, and Xing

(Quoted from the poet Bai Ling’s The Birth of a Poem, p. 95)

II. Musicality in Modern Poetry

(1) The Three Elements of Musicality: Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony

In the field of music, percussion instruments such as drums, gongs, cymbals, and glockenspiels, as well as plucked and string instruments such as the bass (for example, bass guitar) and the cello, play the role of constructing rhythm. Other brass instruments, woodwind instruments, and string instruments are chiefly responsible for performing and accompanying the principal melody, thereby forming melody. Rhythm and melody work together to create a complete musical phrase (harmony).

Professor Chen Zhengzhi, a scholar of children’s poetry, said:

“The three major elements of music are: melody, rhythm, and harmony. The melody of music refers to a combination of musical tones differing in pitch, duration, and intensity. Rhythm refers to the speed and strength of sounds. Harmony refers to the simultaneous vertical combination of several musical tones.” 1

(2) The Design of Musicality

The musicality of modern poetry may be designed from three perspectives: first, rhyme, assonance, and the rise and fall of stanzas; second, the arrangement of long and short lines; third, rhythm and formal design. This topic will be discussed in detail in the chapter devoted to musicality.

Section Three: The Structure and Aesthetic Beauty of Modern Poetry

I. The Structure of Modern Poetry

The structure of modern poetry differs from that of prose and fiction. Although modern poetry may also be divided into stanzas, its structure does not emphasize hierarchical progression (introduction, continuation, transition, conclusion) and narrativity (beginning → development → turning point → conflict → climax → ending) in the same way that prose and fiction do.

In other words, the structure of modern poetry is relatively free, resulting in even greater formal diversity. It may take the form of a brief poem born from a sudden flash of inspiration, or a magnificent narrative (epic) poem. It may be a prose poem without line breaks or stanza divisions, or a fable poem possessing a novelistic structure. These matters will be introduced in detail in the chapter devoted to the structure of modern poetry.

II. The Aesthetic Beauty of Modern Poetry

Through imagery and musicality, modern poetry primarily aims to express emotions and convey the poet’s aesthetic experiences; narration or exposition is, by contrast, optional. Imagery often unfolds through a succession of concrete scenes, one following another, while musicality functions much like the soundtrack accompanying visual images.

Throughout the entire performance process, a poetic work generates numerous forms of beauty that may be perceived or appreciated. These include the aesthetic beauty of artistic conception created through rhetorical devices such as metaphor, symbolism, surrealism, and gradation, as well as the musical beauty produced through assonance (rhyme), harmony (repetition and parallelism), and phonetic puns.

These two aspects—the beauty of artistic conception and the beauty of music—together constitute the aesthetic experience that the poet seeks to convey, whether that experience is based upon the recombination and representation of old experiences or upon the innovation and creation of new experiences.

Notes

1. Chen Zhengzhi, Research on the Writing of Children’s Poetry, Chapter Four, “The Language of Children’s Poetry,” Section Three, “The Language of Music.”