Preface for both English and Turkish translations of
"Voices from Taiwan—— An anthology of Taiwan Modern Poetry "
At an early stage, the Chinese who crossed the strait to Taiwan were mainly fishermen, traders and some jobless wanderers. They started bringing the land under cultivation for settlement, and became laboring population who were somewhat adventurous in spirit.
In the 1620’s, the Dutch and Spanish were once the occupants of Taiwan for more than thirty years. The Chinese inhabitants had to defense themselves against those foreigners since the protection from the Ming Dynasty had been cut off.
Taiwan was not a land of literature until Zheng Cheng-gung came to Taiwan in 1661. He established the base here against the Ching Court for the recovery of the Ming’s establishment. Some intellectuals who would not surrender to the Ching Court followed him and spread the seeds of Taiwan literature. Among them was Shen Kuang-wen who was regarded as the first scholar of Taiwan. He and other Scholars founded the Tung-Yin Poetry Association.
In 1683 Zheng’s regime was overthrown and Taiwan was incorporated into the Ching Empire. More Chinese immigrated into Taiwan, and the activities of the people against the Ching continued. Among them, the rebellion of Lin Shuang-wen in 1787~88 was the most famous. After more than one hundred years, stability of live and boom of literature brought up many a man of letters, whom were all engaged in creating traditional poetry and essays. This situation continued even after the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, when Taiwan became a colony of Japan.
As the inhabitants were not in favor of Taiwan being cut down, they declared independence and formed the Republic of Taiwan. But these efforts were in vain. After the Japanese colonization, though anti-Japanese movement still occurred here and there, the suppression was on such a large scale that thousands of people were convicted and put to death, as in the case of Yu Ching-fang in 1915. The intellectuals were aware that they were not powerful enough to confront the rulers, and they turned to cultural movement. They inspired people with new culture and advocated new literature.
The new cultural movement in Taiwan was started in 1920 by a host of Taiwanese students in Tokyo, Japan. They published a newspaper called Taiwan Youth to introduce new thought, liberty and self-determination, fashionable since the end of World War I. A purpose of the movement was the development of culture by means of literature.
In 1921 Taiwan Cultural Association led by Chiang Wei-shui and Lin Hsien-tang was founded. They lectured on culture issues all over the island of Taiwan to enlighten people with new knowledge. In the following year, they made the Taiwan Youth as their organ newspaper and changed it into a magazine named Taiwan. In this magazine, Huang Chéng-chung and Huang Cháo-chin reported the state of the movement of the Chinese colloquial style in mainland China. They elicited a great public response and stimulated the Taiwan Minpao, a newspaper started in 1923, to adopt colloquial Chinese as its language. This newspaper became the cradle of new literature of Taiwan.
The young generation of Taiwan could read literary works of every country in the world through Japanese translation. When the Taiwan Minpao was started, the works of Chinese authors, such as Lu Shun, Kuo Mo-jo, Hu Shih and others, were reprinted, and the theories of literary revolution of China were introduced by the students who had studied or were studying in China. Among those students, Chang Wo-chun was the most prominent. In this paper, a controversy with the older generation of letters began.
In the Taiwan magazine issued on April 10, 1924, Hsieh Chun-mu, under pen name of Tsuei Feng, published his “Poetical Imitation”, a set of four modern Japanese poems with the themes of resistance, critique, love and beauty, respectively, which became the models of modern Taiwanese poetry. In 1925, Chang Wo-chun published the first collection of modern Taiwanese poems entitled Love in the Capital of Chaos.
At that time, a lot of people still wrote traditional Chinese poems. They had poetical activities, but most of them were social gatherings while literary youths devoted themselves to the new literary movement of self-consciousness.
In 1923 literary periodicals come out one after another, including Nan-yin, Formosa, Pioneer, Taiwan Literature, New Literature of Taiwan and Literary Taiwan etc.
The Taiwan League of Literature was founded in May 6, 1934. It was of the whole Taiwan island organization. The activities of the literary movement flourished.
The Taiwan Association of Poets was set up in 1939. The Ila Formosa was its organ magazine. But it was issued only once. The name of this association was later altered to Taiwan Association of Literature.
After the World War II, Taiwan was taken over by Nationalist China. The official language was changed from Japanese to Mandarin. The literary men who had been accustomed to writing in Japanese had difficulties using Chinese. Besides, postwar China had her internal disturbance. And on Taiwan an incident broke out on February 28, 1947. Some men of letters were exiled, missing or arrested among with the Taiwanese people massacred by Chinese military. The activities of literature showed down suddenly. But the new generation was growing up.
In poetry, for example, the magazine Hsin-hsin came out in 1945. In March 1946, there was a literary column appeared in the Chung-hua Daily News. In August 1947, a literary supplement Bridge was published in the Hsin-sheng News. And in 1948, there was the Tide, whose previous name was the Fuchigusa, originally published by an association called the Silver Bell in 1943. These periodicals were almost ceased to exit by 1947.
At that time, the mainland China was occupied by the Chinese Communists. Though quite a few men of letters followed the government to Taiwan, the confused situation resulted a vacuum state in literature.
It was not until November 1951, when the New Poems, a weekly in the Independence Evening News, was published that there was the first step in the rebirth after the war.
The Association of Modern Poetry was formed in February 1953. And the Blue Stars Poetical Association was established in March of the following year. They published the Blue Stars weekly in the Kung-lun News. In October 1959, the Epoch Poetical Association was organized, and issued their magazine called the Epoch. Owing to the increase in publication, there appeared lots of poets.
Viewing from the history of the movement of new poetry, the year 1956 formed the watershed. In this year, Chi Hsien proclaimed that he had formed the Association of Modern Poetry. His slogan was “To lead the second revolution of new poetry, to push the modernization of new poetry”. He also suggested the six beliefs of the Association of Modern Poetry, which included “We are the group which owe the spirit and elements of modern time. We have to cast or to develop what they are of the new schools after Charles Baudelaire”, “We regard that new poetry should be transplanted laterally, not inherited longitudinally” and the “Stress of intelligence”. These became the targets of critique later on. At its climax the number of its members was 102. Its magazine Modern Poetry was ceased to exist in February 1964. There were 45 issues published in all. In June 1982 the Modern Poetry was once republished for a short period.
In parallel with the formation of the Association of Modern Poetry, the Association of the Blue Stars published their Selected Poems of Blue Stars in 1957. In this anthology, Chin Tzu-hao challenged the Association of Modern Poetry and criticized the theories of modern poetry. He pointed out that “The signification of poetry is to observe the phenomena of life. It is to express the new state of life”. He also said, “Poetry is not a refuge of life”. He stressed that poetry must have the elements of thought and art. The Association of the Blue Stars has edited off and on from the Poetical Pages of the Blue Stars, the Blue Stars Quarterly and the Blue Stars Yearbook up to Poetical Blue Stars.
Though the Association of the Epoch accepted its direction, on the contrary, the Blue Stars had changed its direction matched with that proposed by the Epoch, the standpoint of the nationalist. The members of the Epoch learned further about the techniques of the surrealism. But their theories or works were not so complete. After the establishment of the Li, which means Bamboo Hat, the surrealism was attacked. Besides this, the emergence of the new generation of poets made the route revised one by one.
Though there were differences among these three associations of poetry, the obscurity of the political target and the environments of Taiwan made the new immigrant from China after World War II had the feeling that they would go back to China very soon. They thought that they were the guests on Taiwan, so that the poets from China expressed this kind of mood. Their tones were mainly of homesickness, and their sentiments were of longing for the classical tradition. They pursued inner thought and composed delicate poetical lines. They praise Platonic love and had illusions about abstract glory and power. They did so that they would get some degree of consolation. This state continued until their second generation who like Taiwanese poets observe the reality and criticize the existing state of social affairs.
After 1945, the Taiwanese poets gave up to learn Japanese and instead began to write in Chinese, and young people born after the war have mastered Chinese with ease. These two generations get together and formed the Li（Bamboo Hat）Poetical Society in march 1964. In June of same year they issued a bimonthly called Li. It has never interrupted for more than forty years. In forty years Li become the biggest poetical association in Taiwan with more than eighty members including five different generations.
A bamboo hat is rich in typical symbol in Taiwan being worn by the farmer to keep away sun heat when he is working in the field. The poets under the Bamboo Hat are the heirs of the tradition of social reality. On the other hand, in order to correct the nihilist tendency, it has stressed all the way since the first issue that it must fit firmly with reality, social sense, time spirit and innovation. Therefore, the Bamboo Hat is oriented to combine life, local color, society and art. And the weight of the theme is put on how to change the social reality into the poetical reality.
The Li Poetry Society makes much of positive critique. Besides criticizing the society with poems, it has its weight on the criticism of the poetical works, especially the matters of connecting a novel relationship among things, frame of thought, structure of language and poetical techniques.
The members of the Li are mainly the native born Taiwanese. They inherit the spirit of resistance cultivated under different rulers. On the other hand, it has involved itself with strong social concerns, its conscience of resistance is also strong in expression through the means of art. Though it is organized under the spirit of realism, its members have managed to maintain their own styles.
Of course, there are lots of poets who do not belong to the poetical association mentioned above. They may organize another poetical association, or they don’t participate in any poetical association. Though their poetical moods are different, most of them choose the standpoint of reality to express themselves.
Translated by Dr. Hsu Wen-hsiung
Revised by the author on 2010.03.07
