Author ｜
Chia-jung Liu
Abstract ｜
The thesis analyzes how the style of “new youth” influences the writing traditions of Buddhist priest’s poetry and becomes the leading aesthetic in Buddhist new poetry. Encouraged by the movement of establishing schools with temple property, post-1911 Buddhist priests attempted to reform Buddhism in the hope of becoming Buddhist new youth themselves. Influenced by the spirit of new intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, Buddhist new youth thought only by reforming Sangha system, reversing authority and refraining from the monastery system and sutra chanting system could they keep up with modern China. Buddhist new youth considered saving the nation and the Buddhist reform the new hope of liberation. On the reform of Buddhist literature, they intended to fuse writings with their new identity. The value shifting of the Buddhist new youth and the seniors also nurtured the aesthetic transformation, further modernizing the Buddhist priest’s poetry. Yet the aesthetic construction and the transformation of the Buddhist priest’s poetry were so unique that it did not exactly meet with the style of the new intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement. The thesis analyzes how the new poetry was constructed and expressed aesthetically in modern Buddhist publications based on the new youth discourse, to have a comprehensive understanding of the modern transformation of the traditional Buddhist priest’s poetry.
keywords ｜
Buddhist new youth, modernity, Buddhist publication, new poetry