Constructing A system of irregularities: The poetry of Bei Dao, Yang Lian and Duoduo

This book investigates the poetics of three of the most internationally contemporary Chinese poets – Bei Dao, Yang Lian, and Duoduo – who were all exiled from China after the 1989 Tiananmen student movement. Their poetry was later to be labeled ‘Misty Poem’ (Menglongshi). This book examines three aspects of the ‘Mistiness’ of the poets’ oeuvre: the socio-historic background where Misty poets live and write; imagery; and linguistic elements. After first identifying the roots of Mistiness, this book identifies imagistic and linguistic clues in order to construct a hermeneutical system that examines the irregularities of the Misty poetics and appreciates the polysemy of the poets’ works. The poem’s evocativeness is unveiled, and the irregularity of the poetry’s Mistiness is established as its most powerful linguistic and imagistic aspect. The book then places the three poets' different misty characteristics into contrast: Bei Deo’s twisted imagery and elliptical syntax, Yang’s imagery in a classically-inspired syntax, and Duoduo’s integration of images into a rhythmic syntax.

本书以三位国际知名的中国诗人北岛，杨炼以及多多的作品集为研究对象。这三位诗人均于1989 年天安门事件后流落异国， 其诗作后被称为“朦胧诗”。本书从三个角度考察他们的作品中的“模糊性”， 这三个角度分别是：朦胧诗人生活以及写作的社会历史背景；意象；以及语言要素。本书首先识别出模糊性的根源，然后辨别意向及语言中的线索，从而构造出可用来赏析朦胧诗作中的不规则现象以及一词多义现象的注释系统。回忆在诗作中被唤醒，朦胧中蕴含的不规则性被塑造，成为诗作中最有力的语言与意向角度。这本书随之将三位诗人不同的朦胧特点加以比对：北岛诗作中扭曲的意向和简略的句法，杨炼诗作中启迪于经典的意向和句法，以及多多诗作中意向与韵律句法的结合。