Colonized modernism: A study of the characteristics of Dai Wangshu’s modernist poetry

Urban uncanny is one of the major themes embodied in Western modernist literary works. Dai Wangshu is considered a Chinese modernist poet; however, he kept silence on the topic of city. I will suggest that these differences between Chinese modernist poetry and its Western counterparts were caused by the different nature of the cities. While the Western cities were metropolis; the modern cities in China were colonized cities. Dai Wangshu’s keeping quiet about the topic of city is, in fact, the means of expressing anti-colonialism. This study will exhibit the uniqueness of Chinese modernist poetry through elaborating the characteristics in Dai Wangshu’s poetry. Copyright © 2011 Korea Association of Chinese Language and Literature.