New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry [Hardcover]

This book brings together fresh research from experts on contemporary Chinese poetry, built upon one of the most glorious poetic traditions of any civilization in the world yet historically neglected by scholars in English. This comprehensive volume offers readable and provocative treatments of many of the most important Chinese poets of our age.Rethinking the Legacy of the Cultural Revolution Duo Duo: An Impossible Farewell, or, Exile between Revolution and Modernism Wang Shuo: Playing for Thrills in the Era of Reform, or, A Genealogy of the Present Zhang Chengzhi: Striving for Alternative National Forms, or, Old Red Guard and New Cultural Heretic Wang Xiaobo: From Golden Age to Silver Age, or, Writing Against the Gravity of History Revising a Double-Faced Chinese Modernity

The first step in understanding contemporary Chinese poetry, argues Michelle Yeh in her wide-ranging chapter in Lupke s excellent collection, is to renounce whatever a priori notion of Chineseness we might hold and read the actual poetry, whether from Taiwan and Hong Kong or from Mainland China, here translated. Now that the U.S. and China are increasingly in contact, it is high time for Western readers to come to terms with the lyric of such notable poets as Ya Xian, Luo Fu, and Xia Yu (from Taiwan), Gu Cheng, Yu Jian, and Wang Xiaoni from the PRC. The essays here included are scholarly and critically sophisticated: they open up genuinely new spaces. - Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University

This collection will certainly prove to be a highly valuable scholarly resource for anyone interested in the explosion of creative freedom and variety in Chinese and Taiwanese poetry of recent decades. Beyond that, it eloquently addresses the eternal struggle between the forces of creative openness and those of authoritarianism and repressive orthodoxy. Vital information for us all in these, or any, times. - Michael Palmer

This is a very welcome addition tol³