La poesia femminile cinese contemporanea: alla ricerca di una nuova libertà creativa

Abstract

Contemporary Chinese Women’s poetry: towards a new creative freedom My work will try to shed light on a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon, which is that of Contemporary Chinese women's poetry through the exploration of some of the most significant trends of the past thirty years. The use of the term nüxing shige 女性 诗歌 (women's poetry) refers to a critical discourse that has characterized the Chinese literary scene the mid-'80s as a reaction to the publication of several poems written by women. In the wake of the first gender studies, which became popular in China in that decade, there was an increasingly urgent need for a redefinition of the female after a period in which the propaganda of equality between the sexes and the subsequent masculinization of the Maoist woman had overshadowed any discussion about gender differences. The studies focused on these poetry works, mostly conducted by Chinese criticism, referring to the sharing of certain poetic paradigms, have created some interpretative codes responsible, most of the times, of limited reading of the authors. Recently, the works of critical scholars such as Zhang Xiaohong and Zhou Zan have stressed the importance not only of both the historical and cultural context in which the poets write, but also of the interaction between each individual and the poetic experience, subjects, shared languages and techniques, which have inevitably influenced the discussion on gender issues. My work, clearly referring to studies conducted by these researchers, aims to explore, with a gender approach, the artistic path of three Contemporary women poets in an attempt to provide some general details of interpretation for the study of this subject. Starting from a reference texts corpus, gradually enriched, depending on the research requirements, I chose to focus on two key aspects of the poetics of Zhai Yongming 翟永明, Zhou Zan周 瓒and Hai Nan 海 男, that are gender consciousness and the theme of death, in order to explain the motives and methods that have characterized the change in the '80s and '90s in the way of thinking about poetry and the role it was assigned to it. The different use of the subject of death during these two decades demonstrates the maturation of a different vision of Contemporary poetry in opposition to the social and ethical role it traditionally played. The gender issue, in fact, on passing "political" stage of the '80s, adds new expressive potentials that betray a stronger emphasis on form over content.