avant-garde poetry from china 49ity, is socio-economic reductionism. Bourdieu recognizes this when he
defines the literary field as
a separate social universe having its own laws of functioning indepen-
dent of those of politics and the economy.Yet, subsequently he writes that to understand literature is to under-
stand^56
how it is defined in relation to the field of power and, in particular, in re-
lation to the fundamental law of this universe, which is that of economy
and power.Throughout the twentieth century and beyond, with the Maoist inter-
lude as a complicated exception to the rule, Chinese-poetic modernity
has proven difficult to combine with traditional poetics summed up
as literature to convey the Way. Seen in this light and according to
Bourdieu’s “fundamental law,” modern poetry’s oft-noted marginal-
ization is a valid, indeed an ineluctable notion, as Yeh argues—not
without suggesting that the margin is where modern poetry can be
at its most creative and powerful.^57 But with an eye to its inclinations
since the 1980s and to radical changes in the relations between social,
political, economic and cultural forces at work in contemporary Chi-
na, we might ask: Whose margins? What makes the classical poetry
paradigm, socio-economic development or power relations the center?
Whose center? Artistic creativity gives a unique twist to our efforts to
make sense of an ever-changing world, and perhaps its uniqueness lies
precisely in the fact that it isn’t easily made to fit consensual truths, or
financially quantified, or translated into palpable power over others.
Lest we reduce it to a flaw in the fabric of rigidly canonized cultural
identities or all-encompassing economic “rationalism,” we should be
wary of an argument that may appear plausible enough but is deep-
ly problematic. For anything like a comprehensive understanding of
Chinese poetry today, it makes no sense to apply criteria informed by
forces that are largely alien to the avant-garde’s development: ortho-
doxy—be it premodern or modern, Confucian or Communist—and
marketization. Is this poetry suitable for conveying the Way? and Does
this poetry sell? are the wrong questions.
(^56) Bourdieu 1993: 162-164.
(^57) Yeh 1992: xxiii-l and 2007a.