Title: A modernity in pre-modern tune
Description: This dissertation is a study of the polemical relationship between pre-modern poetic genre and Chinese literary modernity. Through examining classical-style poetry written by modern Chinese writers Yu Dafu, Guo Moruo, and Zhou Zuoren, this study confirms the capability of classical-style poetry to describe modern reality and manifest modern consciousness. According to the May Fourth "progressive" critics, Chinese classical-style poetry is an antiquated genre as well as an obstacle to literary modernity. As a result, the current compass of modern Chinese literary history rarely mentions the creation of classical-style poetry in the modern period. However, modern Chinese writers never abandoned the genre. Under many circumstances they even regarded classical-style poetry as the most appropriate genre to fulfill their needs for occasional composition. Their continuous productions of classical-style poetry not only suggests a more fluid interaction of the traditional and the modern, but also urges readers to reconceptualize Chinese literary modernity.

Modern Chinese writers' disillusionment with contemporary social, political, and cultural reality, as well as their diverse responses to modernity, lie behind their creation and revaluation of classical-style poetry. During the entire twentieth century, generations of Chinese writers have presented their poetic passions in traditional genre and lyrical modes. Their utterances turn out to be an aesthetic practice mediated by their political attitudes toward China's modern discourse.