(1900— 1976), formerly known as Li Quanxing, whose pen name is Li, was born in Meixian County, Guangdong Province. Modern writers, poets and artists.
Li Jinfa studied in San Jose Middle School in Hong Kong in his early years, and then went to Nanyang Middle School in Shanghai. 19 19 went to France to work and study, 192 1 year studied at Dijon Art School and Paris Imperial Art School. Under the influence of French symbolism poetry, especially Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, he began to write poems with peculiar style, which caused a sensation in China's new poetry world and became China's "monster of poetry world". From 1920 to 1923, he wrote Light Rain in Berlin. At the beginning of 1925, he returned to China to teach at the invitation of Liu Haisu, president of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. In the same year, he joined the Literature Research Association and wrote articles for Novel Monthly and New Women. 1926 published a collection of poems "Singing for Happiness" in the Literature Research Association. /kloc-in the autumn of 0/927, he served as secretary of Central University and published Diners and Bad Years. 1928 served as the director of the sculpture department of Hangzhou National Art Institute, founded the magazine Aesthetic Education, and then went to Guangzhou to engage in sculpture work. 1936 served as the president of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. In the late 1940s, he served as a diplomatic official for several times, far from his hometown, and then moved to new york, USA, until his death.
In the history of China's new poetry development, Li Jin, a pioneer poet of modern symbolism poetry, has been neglected and misunderstood as a mystery. In fact, Li Jinfa is a figure at a turning point, and his appearance is an inversion and correction of Hu Shi's "Qingming" and Guo Moruo's frank and unrestrained poetic creation thought, which has the power to correct mistakes and make up for disadvantages. Since its birth, China's new poetry has been full of realism and romanticism, among which poets from the Literature Research Society and the Creation Society are the best representatives. However, Li Jinfa's contribution is that he introduced the artistic quality of modernism into China's new poems. The "exotic fragrance" he brought from Paris, the capital of art, shocked us and enriched the connotation of China's new poems. He liberated poetry from the bondage of the task of the times with a new artistic form, and instead conveyed the deep inner feelings of individuality and expressed people's secret and subtle emotions. This kind of poetry is completely different from the vernacular poetry in the early May 4th Movement. If we follow the traditional way, we can't enter his poetic world, but his works have every reason to enter the vision of literary historians. Some works, such as Abandoned Wife, can even be regarded as the classics of China's modern poetry.
Generally speaking, the discussion and debate on poetry has always focused on the level of "pure art", that is, the fusion and conflict between the western symbolic poetry art (Li was the first person to introduce the western symbolic poetry art) and the local poetry cultural tradition. The reasons for this fusion and conflict are complicated, but the strange mother tongue (Zhu Ziqing's language) and strange poetry forms undoubtedly span between his poetry world and readers. In fact, like other early symbolist poets (such as Mu Hewang), when he unswervingly chose the modern way of poetry, he did not choose the modernist spirit-"fighting to the death" like the later modernist poets in China, but chose the aesthetic-decadent outlook on life and art to build his own poetry building, which is the main reason why he became an embarrassing poet.
Li Jinfa said: "Art is a world that ignores morality and is different from society. The only purpose of art is to create beauty, and the only job of artists is to faithfully express their own world. " His poems, such as light rain? There is indeed such a strange and horrible poem in "Quiet at Night": "Why is it all dead outside the window?" Dividing the world into imaginary and realistic ends is the universal aesthetic value orientation of Li Jinfa's poetry creation, but he is paranoid about his inner world. The essence of his so-called "own world" is "teasing the mysterious and sad beauty of life". In this world, life is a "smile on the lips of death" (feeling), a "toothless jaw without cheekbones" (life), and eventually it will be "smashed for grass insects" (life), with only "beauty" and "beauty". Since his life is just "a Henrietta de Osh" and since "he was born homeless and died and had to hide underground", it is better to "do something forgetful and repay him with a meal" ("because he is used to it"). To be sure, the ideological source of this aestheticism-decadent consciousness is not the traditional view of world-weariness and playfulness, but the modern philosophical concept with the purpose of individual existence. Specifically, it is a kind of self-generated depression and fear after modern people realize the inevitable survival dilemma of life and death, and it is an "evil flower" rooted in what the artist called "Weltschmerz". Here, aestheticism and decadence are twin brothers. The so-called "decadence" is a pessimistic and nihilistic recognition of life and even the whole civilization, while the so-called "aestheticism" is hedonism under the guidance of this "recognition". Under the banner of "pure poetry" played by China's early symbolist poets, the transcendental aesthetic concept actually hides a very real survival strategy-"The life we call for is just this disappearing moment, except that we don't know that we have ourselves. Then, like the moment when fireflies die, it has to be regarded as the only reliable form of our life activities. He quoted a famous sentence in the third chapter of the last day of death row by the French poet Hugo:' All of us have been sentenced to death, but there is still a little hesitation or irregular execution', which shows that his life is like a pain in the spine. The more he felt the threat of death, the more he respected that moment like morning dew. He realized that the present is the only reality, refused to regret the past and hope for the future, and only struggled bravely and diligently to enrich and expand the present. His attitude is positive rather than negative, and he focuses on the present. He said: "The fruit of experience is not an end, but experience itself is an end." . In order to live in the same way and purpose, we should treat life in the spirit of art: encouraging such treatment is the real ethical significance of art and poetry. "
From this passage, we can know that China scholars have already touched the philosophical root of aestheticism-decadence. As an aesthete-decadent poet, Li Jinfa did provide something worthy of recognition and appreciation, such as the spirit of completely rebelling against traditional morality and the gesture of generous dedication to art, but it is dangerous to make subjective judgments by over-idealizing this recognition, ignoring the pessimistic nihilism behind this spirit and gesture, and ignoring the fundamental relationship between art and social life that may be distorted and denied. The reason why Li Jinfa's poems are controversial is not only his own problems, but also the subjective reasons.
Poetic Style Li Jinfa's poems enrich the expressive techniques and poetic images of China's new poems, show a new modern landscape that others can't replace, open up a new road for the development of China's new poems, and open a precedent for China's modern symbolism art.
Symbolism art mostly rejects rationality and emphasizes fantasy and intuition. Therefore, Zheng Xiang School's poetry has a vague, implicit and obscure aesthetic pursuit. Wei Erlun, who was called "honorary teacher" by Li Jinfa, said: Choosing poetry vocabulary not only does not require accuracy, on the contrary, it requires a little mistake, because nothing is more precious than the ambiguity of poetry; Malamei even declared: "Poetry should always be a mystery". Li Jinfa was extremely dissatisfied with the situation of early vernacular poetry, thinking that it was "chaotic, without artistic conception, as simple as a letter from home". Therefore, he advocated the art of symbolism poetry and even agreed with the extremes of symbolism. In his view, "poetry is the sublimation of personal spirit and soul, and it is somewhat aristocratic. Therefore, a poet's poem is not necessarily a good poem that everyone can understand, or only some people, or people with considerable training, can appreciate its benefits. Poetry is "you say a' you' to me, and I only understand the meaning of' I'", and only obscurity is the "inexhaustible beauty" in poetry. Therefore, reading his poems driven by extremes and extremes will inevitably lead to mystery, such as completeness, expression time and feelings. I'm afraid it's hard for even "well-trained" people to "appreciate" the mystery, which gives people the impression that they are looking at flowers in the fog. If the early vernacular poems are as "transparent as a glass ball" as Zhou Zuoren ridiculed, then Li Jinfa's poems are largely like a mystery that is difficult to solve. No wonder Su sighed with emotion: "None of Li Jinfa's poems can be fully understood."
However, just as we can't obliterate the historical achievements of early vernacular new poetry with plain words, we can't obliterate Li Jinfa's position and contribution in the history of China's new poetry with obscure words. Mr. Xie Mian said: "Li Jinfa's contribution is to stir the symbolic monster to the calm poetry circle that day." Compared with the early vernacular poetry, the progress of symbolic poetry school lies in that they are closer to the essence of poetry from theory to practice, although symbolic poetry school also has a process from childish to mature. In addition, the influence of symbolism poetry school on later modernism poetry school is also obvious, so people call symbolism poetry school the first wave of China modernism.
Li Jinfa's poems are more like a "beautiful chaos" than an obscure mystery. He shows China's understanding of the essence of poetry (such as poetic thinking, poetic logic, poetic discourse system, etc.). ) and their vision of the future. In the history of China's new poetry, Li Jinfa's practical role is to broaden people's poetic vision and change the linear development direction of poetry, although this way of broadening and changing seems sloppy, indulgent and even full of game spirit.