capitalism, replete with their mechanisms of callings, opportunities,
and rewards” (48).
By questioning literature as representation, I am not denying it pro-
vides an invaluable window on a culture, society, or time period; in
fact, in undergraduate courses we often use literature that way. But, in
teaching literature as a means of introducing students to China, we also
teach—or should teach—them how to appreciate Chinese literature as
art. When some of them decide to further their study of Chinese liter-
ature, be it a particular writer, genre, period, or theme, they do so not
so much out of a desire to gain more knowledge about China—
because that goal may as well be served by other fields of study—as
out of a desire to experience again and again the pleasure and power
of imaginative writing. After all, literature is a special kind of dis-
course distinct in fundamental ways from other discourses. To treat it
as if it is no different from any other discourse is to be not only
extremely reductive but to also implicitly and effectively acquiesce to
other disciplines the legitimacy and value of literary study.
The obsession with Chineseness is particularly pervasive in
Modern Chinese Poetry.^1 Associations with foreign—especially
Western—influences have always been cause for disdain and dis-
missal, and the concern with the cultural identity of Modern Chinese
Poetry, or the lack thereof, has underscored many debates and con-
troversies throughout the twentieth century. Between 1910 and 1930,
critics of New Poetry or Vernacular Poetry —the earliest
names of Modern Chinese Poetry—regarded it a mere imitation of the
avant-garde in the West; quite a few mistakenly attributed its emer-
gence to the influence of Imagism, a mistake perpetuated by later
critics both in and outside China. In Taiwan in the early 1970s, during
the Modern Poetry Debate戰, modernist poetry was con-
demned as “colonial,” “narcissistic,” and “decadent” for having drawn
inspirations from Anglo-European modernism, including surrealism,
existentialism, and psychoanalysis (Xi 1998b). In mainland China in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, the revival of poetry that departed
from the PRC norm of the political lyric puzzled and angered the cul-
tural establishment. The unfamiliarity of the new poetry immediately
made it look “Westernized” and earned it the derogatory name Misty
Poetry (menglongshi朦朧) (Yeh 1992). In the early 1990s, the vet-
eran poet and literary scholar Zheng Min (b. 1920) lambasted
Modern Poetry in totofor its Westernized character and urged poets
to return to the Chinese tradition (Yeh 1991b). Finally, in mainland
China in 1999–2000, the prolonged debate between the People’s
Poets and the Intellectual Poets revolved around the issue of12 Michelle Yeh9781403976079ts03.qxp:Layout 1 11/9/07 11:08 AM Page 12