Guest lecture – Zhiyi Yang: "Avant-Garde Classisist Poetry in Chinese Cyberspace"

The DFG Center for Advanced Studies “Russian-Language Poetry in Transition” (FOR 2603) cordially invites you to a lecture with Prof. Dr. Zhiyi Yang streamed live via Zoom. Please register by e-mail with Anna Fees (anna.fees@uni-trier.de) no later than June 29th, 2021, to receive the stream’s access data.

Abstract:

Avant-garde classicist poetry came to prominence in Chinese cyberspace around the end of the 1990s. In this talk, I argue that it is the child of the fragmentation of literary Chinese that began in the early 20^th century. Instead of entirely abandoning the classical literary language or seeking to restore a ‘pristine’ form of it, this poetry instead decides to embrace the fragments and the debris. Its avant-gardism is of another kind: the innovative hybridization of modern vernacular and classical literary languages. I will examine the works of a few leading poets – Lizilizilizi (“Plum, Chestnut, Pear”), Xutang (“Hall of Vital Breath”), Dugu-shiroushou (“Lone Carnivore”), Tianxuezhai (“Falling Snow Studio”), and Fachufumei (“Brow Brimming Bang”) – in order to discuss issues such as hybridity, musicality, and gender norms.