Han Mac Tu - Poetry

Poetry

Hàn Mặc Tử's early poems - praised by Phan Bội Châu - are famous for their purity of diction and form, and show him to be a fluent Classicist with a strong interest in realistic subjects. Subsequently, his poetry showed the influence of French Symbolism, and after he fell sick, became increasingly violent and despondent. Personal despair combined with the search for poetic novelty led him to found the short-lived "Disordered" (Loạn) or "Mad" (Ðiên) school of poetry. More than a love poet, Hàn Mặc Tử was a Modernist, who sought to fuse, in a new poetic language, disparate traditions and experiences. Beginning with poems that refreshed the Classical tradition, he went on to absorb the French influence, which he directed toward the turbulence of his own painful history. His language, increasingly tortured, remained both Classical and innovative throughout; and though a Catholic, he made frequent use of Buddhist ideas and imagery.

Read more about this topic:  Han Mac Tu

Famous quotes containing the word poetry:

    I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Finally, in the last year of her age,
    Having attained a present blessedness,
    She said poetry and apotheosis are one.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)