434 chapter twelve
it served as the introduction to Wang and Sun’s Chinese Poetry, which
came out in January 2000. Wang makes no attempt to appear im-
partial; the essay’s journal publication aside, we will shortly consider
the results of his partiality—as editor—for the anthology as a whole.
He acknowledges that during the early and mid-1980s Chinese po-
ets sometimes uncritically absorbed and imitated Western literature,
theory and criticism, perhaps to make up for the spiritual famine of the
Cultural Revolution; but he rightly observes that since the late 1980s
Chinese poetry’s interaction with the West has been the subject of crit-
ical reevaluation, and that this is visible in poetry by various Intellectu-
als. As open-minded as Wang is when discussing such developments,
as rigid is he when reiterating Cheng Guangwei’s appropriation of
the notion of Poetry of the Nineties to denote but one of many pos-
sible literary persuasions rather than a non-judgmental, chronologi-
cal category. Another weakness is that, contradicting Wang’s habitual
remarks on the “bitter struggle” in which he sees poetry as forever
engaged, his essay breathes a complacent sense of the end of history.
With hindsight, previous trends are shown to have led inevitably to
(p10-11)^19
independent intellectual individual writing.That is: to the ultimate poetry—of the kind to which Wang Jiaxin
subscribes. But Wang is not the only one who feels that the poetry of
his preference is the only right poetry, not to say the necessary poetry,
for contemporary China. The same holds for various authors from the
Popular camp, Yu Jian (#14) most of all.
Other Intellectual Rejoinders: Xi Du and Cheng GuangweiXi Du was another impassioned and productive defender of the In-
tellectual cause (#24, 28, 39, 56). His “Thoughts on Various Issues”
(#24), first published in the June 1999 issue of Poetry Exploration and ex-
cerpted as “Is Poetry Common Knowledge?” for the special feature in
Literary Theory, also appeared under the more apposite title “Challeng-
ing Some of Yu Jian’s Poetical Propositions” (ᇍѢമϾ䆫ᄺੑ乬
ⱘ䋼⭥) in the July issue of Mountain Flower. Xi Du tends to get carried
away when he speaks out in support of Intellectual Writing, but he ef-
(^19) The page reference is to the article’s publication in Chinese Poetry. Cf note 3.