On the Name Changing of the Difference between Spoken Language Poetry and Classical Chinese Poetry

The differences between free verses written in the vernacular and classical Chinese poetry had been advocated by Hu Shi during the literary revolution in order to promote new poetry. Since Hu Shi renamed free verses written in the vernacular as new poetry in his On New Poetry,these differences had turned into the differences between new poetry and old-style poetry. As the choice of words and the poetic contents mentioned in the History of Vernacular Literature, the differences between classical and vernacular Chinese had been partly transformed into the differences between the elegance and vulgarity. This actually reflects the new understandings of Chinese poetry rules.