Spoken and Literary Languages: A Key Problem of New Poetry ——Concurrent Discussion With Prof. Zheng Min

A tradition in the historical development of new poetry is what Hu Shi advocated that vernacular should somehow be developed from a prosified spoken language into a literary one. And the achievement in this respect should be taken undoubtedly. Therefore, new poetry has not only the literary language of its own, but quite a mature one at that. Outstanding poets create their own language. Vernacular has provided a basic need for the composition of new poems. A poet should doubt not whether the language has reached the level required for the expression but whether he could create by way of his composition the language that meets the requirement of such expression.