what was all the fuss about? 445Wang Jiaxin and Xi Chuan, among other authors who counted as In-
tellectuals during the Polemic. In his controversial anthology, Cheng
Guangwei places Tendency and the Review on a pedestal, to the chagrin
of Popular polemicists. The historical affinity of the Popular lies with
Colloquial Poetry’s milestone Them, the indecorous Macho Men and the
iconoclast Not-Not, which advertised its poetics as “anti-cultural” or
“pre-cultural.” The picture is complete once we realize that the Ten-
dency founders were in part motivated by the wish to counterbalance
the impact of colloquializing and vulgarizing trends, in a conscious
effort to have their own poetics recognized as an important part of the
poetry scene.
There is no reason to doubt the significance of textual consider-
ations in the emergence of individual journals of varying literary per-
suasion, meaning aesthetic—as distinct from “strategic”—preferences
for this or that poetic style. But the personality factor does come into
play when individual oeuvres develop and diverge or converge while
personal ties of allegiance and enmity remain, whether according to
the authors involved or to their audience. On that note, over and above
the examples cited in the previous paragraph and their immediate
connection to the Polemic, it is possible to observe an affiliation with
either of the overarching categories of the Elevated and the Earthly—
as well as “Northern” and especially “Southern” identities—for many
of the unofficial journals that have helped shape the face of contempo-
rary Chinese poetry from the late 1970s until today.^23
Geographical-cultural and institutional dividing lines frequently
coincide. Interwoven with them and discernible throughout the Po-
lemic are biographical connections and personal ties of allegiance—
friendships and so on—which can overlap with literary kinship but
need not. Let’s consider an example of what these various filters can
do to the critical perception of literature.
Yu Jian and Yi Sha had been widely associated with one another
long before they both came to occupy central positions in the Popular
camp. Xi Chuan and Haizi continue to be mentioned in the same
breath by poets, critics, scholars and other readers to this day. And
granted, while Yu Jian and Yi Sha are colloquialists and demystifiers,
Xi Chuan’s and Haizi’s early poetries share an aversion to these trends
and are both marked by religious overtones. In their poetry, however,
(^23) On North-South rivalries and unofficial journals, see Van Crevel 2007.