in the development of China literature, poetry (including poetry, fu, ci, qu, etc.) has made great achievements. However, in modern times, the creation of classical poetry gradually became rigid, "platitudes" were full, and the tendency of "moaning without illness" was quite common. The vocabulary used in classical poetry was seriously out of touch with modern spoken language, and its strict restrictions in form (including rules and phrases, antithetical quotations and even-level rhymes) caused great constraints on poetry's ever-changing and increasingly complex social life and the expression of people's true thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the New Poetry Revolution became the first and most important part of the May 4th New Literature Movement. In the initial stage of new poetry, the main content is to abolish the formal constraints of old-style poetry, advocate vernacular Chinese into poetry, and express the poet's true feelings. Therefore, at that time, new poetry was also called "vernacular poetry", "vernacular rhyme" and "mandarin rhyme" (Qian Xuantong's Preface to Trial Collection, Hu Shi's Talk about New Poetry and Kang Baiqing's My Opinion on the Bottom of New Poetry). In February, 1917, 8 vernacular poems of Hu Shi were published in No.6, Volume 2 of New Youth, which was the first batch of vernacular new poems in China. The first collection of poems written in vernacular Chinese was Hu Shi's Attempt Collection (192). It was Guo Moruo's Goddess (1921) that first showed a brand-new look in ideology and art and made a great contribution to the determination of the status of new poetry.
In the process of its establishment and development, new poetry was greatly influenced by foreign poetry. This has played a positive role in the formation of artistic methods of new poetry. On the basis of absorbing the beneficial nutrition from China's classical poems, folk songs and foreign poems, many poets have explored the expression methods and artistic forms of new poetry in many aspects, resulting in various artistic trends such as realism, romanticism and symbolism, and various forms such as free verse, new metrical verse, sonnet, step poem and prose poem have appeared. The exploration of many poets and the creation of some outstanding poets have gradually made new poetry mature and diversified. Since the May 4th Movement, new poetry has been the main body of China's modern poetry.
a kind of poetic style. It originated in Europe in the late 19th century and early 2th century. Its body structure is free, and there are no certain specifications for the number of paragraphs, rows and words; Language has a natural rhythm instead of rhyme. Whitman, an American poet, is the founder in the West. This style has also been popular in Chinese new poems since the May 4th Movement.
Free verse is also called new verse, which is relative to old verse. It is free and flexible in chapters, steps and rhymes, and has no strict and fixed restrictions and constraints like metrical poetry.
It is generally believed that Whitman, an American poet in the 19th century, is the founder of free verse, and his masterpiece Leaves of Grass.
Around the May 4th Movement, free verse became popular in China, such as Goddess by Guo Moruo, Liu Bannong by Hu Shi, and Xu Zhimo ("Crescent School")
Free verse was a pioneer in the field of vernacular literature, and its emergence can be regarded as a sign of the beginning of the May 4th New Literature and the May 4th Literary Revolution. Before the May 4th Movement, the decay of the old-style poems was the most obvious, which was reflected in the ideological content. Formally, they cling to the stale and unchanging rules. To this end, Hu Shi clearly pointed out: the bondage of form prevents the spirit from developing freely and the good content from being fully expressed ...... The five-seven-word-eight-sentence rhyme must not contain rich materials, the 28-word quatrains must not be written with precise observation, and the seven-word-five words with a certain length must not euphemistically express profound ideals and complex feelings. ...... The recent occurrence of new poetry not only broke the poetic style of seven words and five words, but also overthrew all kinds of constraints of tune and music, which are not formal, flat, flat or long, whatever the topic, what poetry should be done (Hu Shi's "Talking about New Poetry"). This proposition became the classic theory of vernacular poetry creation later.
Free verse is born out of the shackles of the old-style poetry meter, and strives for liberation in style, syllable and language, showing new characteristics:
First, it breaks the rigid and trite classical Chinese and adds lines of poetry in vernacular Chinese. In particular, it advocates replacing the difficult cliches of classical Chinese with simple and friendly common words and sayings close to the common spoken language, writing about the social situation, and expressing sincere feelings and brand-new ideas.
Secondly, in syllable rhythm, we should get rid of the rigid constraints of the old-style poetry, such as the rhyme and meter, the parallel allusion, etc., and pay attention to the natural music without being confined to the rhyme (Kang Baiqing's My Opinion on New Poetry). The syllables of the poetry should be prioritized and cadenced only to meet the natural ups and downs of the poet's own emotions and the natural rhythm of the tone.
In addition, I intentionally pursue an unrestrained and free expression in the style. Without being bound by meter and rhyme, the poem pours out what is in the heart without scruple, and it neither branches nor rhymes, even if the branches are arranged randomly according to the content of the work, thus forming the main characteristics of the artistic form of free verse. The most striking feature of free verse in ideological content is that it shows deep sympathy and concern for the tragic fate of the oppressed and enslaved lower class workers and peasants. Unprecedented in a lot of space, it shows their real life sufferings, so as to reveal the sharp opposition between the rich and the poor and the essential characteristics of feudal autocracy in the old society.