With the development of the current situation, Lu Xun's prose poems attach great importance to the social function of literature and art, and turn from "prose poems of prose culture" to "poetic prose", which is more clear and clear, and uses more prose techniques such as lyricism and discussion. Weeds is a masterpiece here. Lu Xun thought that as long as he had some feelings, he would write a short essay, which, to put it mildly, was prose poetry. Weeds breaks through the stylistic boundaries of existing prose poems in both genre and theme. Before Weeds, there were only Jiao Juyin's poetry anthology published in 1925 and Gao Changhong's poetry anthology published in 1926. However, these two poetry anthologies were not as artistic and ideological as Weeds, so Weeds was recognized as the first poetry anthology in China.
Weeds, known as China's first collection of prose poems, is not all prose poems in the strict sense of stylistic classification, and some can only be classified as essays or essays. Another reason for this genre confusion is that the style of China's prose poems is in the primary stage, and the stylistic norms that can define what is pure prose poems have not been established. Influenced by the radical ideological trend of the New Poetry Revolution, which broke the "no rhyme, no poem", prose poetry creation has a tendency of practicality, prose culture and liberalization. The publication of Weeds caused a sensation at the beginning, and the publication of the serial of Weeds and Threads rose rapidly from 65,438+0,000 copies to more than 8,000 copies. In the creation of prose poems more than 60 years after Wild Grass, there are many prose poets influenced by Lu Xun's prose poems, and almost every generation of influential people have been influenced by Wild Grass.
Guo Moruo's My Prose Poems was published in the supplement of Current Affairs News in Deng Xue on February 20th, 1920. Guo Moruo has always pursued a free poetic style. Guo Moruo carefully studied the history of prose poetry in China's classical literature, and verified the origin of the word "prose poetry" in China's literature, and attached great importance to prose poetry. However, Guo Moruo regards prose poetry as poetry, especially the prosodic format of prose poetry, as an important basis for new poetry to break the metrical restrictions. He believes that there are nude poems, that is, they express the changes of ideas in emotions without relying on the rhythm of music. This is prose poetry.
Later, Qu Qiubai, Xu Yunuo, Xu Zhimo, Wang Jingzhi, Zheng Zhenduo, Gu Teng and others also tried to create prose poems similar to those of Liu Bannong, Lu Xun and Guo Moruo. Xu Yunuo was an accomplished writer of prose poetry in the middle and early 1920s. 1922 In August, the Commercial Press published his poetry collection (prose poetry collection) The Garden of the Future. There are short and exquisite prose poems in the future garden.
With the change of prose poetry creation from "prose poetry" to "poetic prose", that is, from "poetry" to "prose", more and more people have doubts about whether prose poetry is poetry or not and whether free poetry should follow the path of prose poetry, so a big discussion about prose poetry is launched around 1922. Under the influence of the trend of the times, China's old poems are reformed from two aspects: language and metrical form, that is, vernacular Chinese is used instead of classical Chinese, and prose is used instead of rhyme, that is, poetry is written as a composition, which breaks the old habit of "poetry without rhyme is not poetry". This discussion on prose poetry is still defending prose poetry as poetry, although some people have made some differences between new poetry and prose poetry. For example, Sidi (Zheng Zhenduo)' s "On Prose Poetry" thinks that "the foundation of Prose Poetry is already very solid.
Prose poems in the 1930s are not as rich and varied as those in the 20s. Generally speaking, the number of excellent prose poets is less than that in the 1920s. In 1930s, some prose poets such as Liu Bannong, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Zheng Zhenduo, Xu Yunuo, Zhu Ziqing and Xie Bingxin did not write or seldom wrote prose poems, while the works of more active prose poets such as Xu Dishan, Wei Congwu and Gao Changhong in 1920s decreased sharply. There is no longer much controversy about the style of prose poetry in the 1920s. The style of prose poetry began to develop from prose poetry to poetic prose, and even divided into pure prose poetry and impure prose poetry. The former improved the style of prose poetry, while the latter changed into narrative style, argumentative style and lyrical style according to the conscious principle of style, and finally gradually became narrative style, such as (prose) and argumentative style (such as essays).
Prose poetry during the Anti-Japanese War, like all literary genres, became a tool to publicize the Anti-Japanese War. In the "isolated island" of Shanghai in the late 1930s, the southwest rear area in the 1940s and the Kuomintang-controlled area in the late 1940s, there was an upsurge of prose poetry creation. Most of the works in this period borrowed the expressions of traditional national fables and foreign cultural symbols, which have a lot of symbolic significance, such as Ginkgo by Guo Moruo, Dragon Tiger Dog by Ba Jin, Sunrise by Liu Beiyi, Before Dawn, One Yin by Tian, and Tree of Life by Molo and Chen. Prose poems in this period were too utilitarian, some of them were completely assimilated by lyric prose, and prose poems began to grow between lyric prose and poetry.
In 1950s, there was also an upsurge of prose poetry creation, which formed two styles, namely, Guo Feng's prose poetry and Michelle's prose poetry. The prose style represented by Guo Feng can be traced back to modern Zhou Zuoren and foreign Turgenev, and the poetry style represented by Michelle can be traced back to modern Lu Xun and foreign Baudelaire. In the sixties and seventies, due to political reasons, writing prose poems was regarded as petty bourgeoisie sentiment, and prose poems almost disappeared. They just appear as "lace literature" in some newspaper supplements, and the style construction is in a retrogressive position. Only a few people devote themselves to the creation of prose poems. For example, Wang Erbei, a poetess, was known as a "wandering poet" for her beautiful and feminine prose poems in the 1970s.
The unprecedented prosperity of China's prose poetry in the new period is conducive to the society and art gradually gaining more and more freedom. A large number of foreign prose poems such as Turgenev, Baudelaire, Tagore and Ji Bolun were translated and introduced, and the Prose Poetry Newspaper, Prose Poet Newspaper and China Prose Poetry Society came out, and there appeared such stylistic schools as "Exploring Prose Poetry", "Reforming Prose Poetry" and "Long Narrative Prose Poetry".
In the 1980s, prose poetry gradually developed into modernization, openness and diversification. Instead of simply emphasizing that literature is the reflection of social life and the political propaganda and enlightenment function of literature, it strengthened the understanding of the aesthetic function of literature and the study of the aesthetic subject, and realized the artistic characteristics of various categories of literature, such as social function, creative personality, stylistic awareness and readers' appreciation interest. In particular, the subjectivity of literature was highly valued. 1986 is also called "Year of Literary Theme".
In the middle and late 1980s and early 1990s, prose poetry prevailed in China, and there was an upsurge of prose poetry creation and research. Outstanding prose writers such as Liu Zaifu and prose theorists such as Wang Guangming emerged, which greatly expanded the theme of prose poetry, changed the face of prose poetry in the 1960s and 1970s, and completely got rid of the fate of "lace literature". There are both prose poems concerned about individual life and prose poems expressing the major themes of reform at that time. The genre of prose poetry has also greatly expanded, and many prose poems have appeared, such as reportage prose poems, discipline prose poems, political prose poems, tourism prose poems, sports prose poems, adventure prose poems and so on. The number of prose poetry writers is unprecedented, and two national organizations of prose poetry writers and researchers have emerged-China Prose Poetry Society and China Prose Poetry Research Society.
The style of prose poetry was unstable in the 1930s and 1990s, and its development fluctuated. However, China's prose poems have obvious stylistic characteristics of spontaneous to conscious development in the development of world prose poems, and their stylistic independence gradually emerges.