what was all the fuss about? 403an extremely strict artistic standard, it is a moral issue in the writing of
poetry.The problem was that Cheng appropriated the full breadth of a de-
cade for only one of many poetic practices that co-existed at the time.
One thing that angered many was Cheng’s negotiation of an is-
sue which has remained controversial ever since Huang Zunxian’s
experiments with the vernacular in the final years of the nineteenth
century, namely Chinese poetry’s relationship with foreign and espe-
cially “Western” literature. First, Cheng lists numerous foreign influ-
ences, but without textual evidence, so that this amounts to little more
than name-dropping. When discussing Zhang Shuguang, whose poem
«Ulysses» (ᇸ߽㽓ᮃ, 1992) is included, Cheng mentions Yeats, Rilke,
MiÑosz, Lowell and Pound; for Wang Jiaxin, whose «Pasternak» and
«Kafka» (वव, 1992) are included, Yeats, MiÑosz, Pasternak and
Brodsky; for Zhai Yongming, Sylvia Plath; for Xi Chuan, whose «Re-
reading Borges’ Poetry» (䞡䇏मᇨ䌿ᮃ䆫℠, 1997) is included, Bor-
ges, Neruda and Pound; for Chen Dongdong, Apollinaire and Breton;
and for Xiao Kaiyu, “certain American poets” and Pound. The echo
Cheng hears of Chinese traditions moves him to no more than one
mention of Republican-era poets Li Jinfa and Dai Wangshu in con-
nection with Chen Dongdong, and one of Tang and Song dynasty po-
ets Li Shangyin, Wen Tingyun and Li Yu in connection with authors
of lesser prominence in his anthology.
A second bone of contention was Cheng’s depiction of Chinese po-
etry’s relationship with its Western precursors and examples. This is
the operative passage (p18):
There is a notion that traditional Chinese poetry never offered modern
poetry a suitable aesthetic space, and that therefore one can say that
modern Chinese poetry has grown and developed in another aesthetic
space, that is: within the Western poetic tradition. Such a notion pres-
ents us with the hypothesis that people could only discuss Poetry of the
Nineties within the boundaries of Western taste. I do not doubt that our
poets have wanted to dedicate themselves to modern Chinese poetry
with all the sincerity and responsibility contained in the greatness of their
character; but I do doubt whether the ordeal of their dilemma has con-
tributed to the rational development of our modern poetry. On the one
hand we look to Pound, Eliot, Auden, Yeats, MiÑosz, Mandelstam, not
to mention the biases and ever-changing tastes of foreign sinologists, and
we attempt to establish what is in fact the fiction of a “tradition” of mod-
ern poetry in Chinese; on the other, in our heart of hearts, in the insight