关键词: 伐柯之斧, 章法利器, 文化传承, 变异改写, 符号适应

Abstract: Since the release of Chen Shil-Hsiang's English version of Wen Fu (Essay on Literature) by Lu Chi, the scholar of the Western Jin Dynasty, in 1948, the Chinese “handle-chopping axe” has become a symbolical and metaphorical chopper in restyling modern American poetry. Such a breakaway stems from the co-existing axe-culture in Chinese and American poetic traditions, where the image of “axe” is often taken as a sharpening-and-shaping tool for poetic innovation and cultural inheritance. In terms of poetics, “Chinese axe” is employed as a sharpening instrument for composition, or, a sophisticated writing technique in literary production, whereas “American axe” is seen as a shaping tool to “clear the ground,” that is, to de-romanticize the poems, which paves the way for the Americanized debut poetry. The shared property of both axes has contributed to some modern American poems modified and adapted by Chinese “handle-chopping axe,” which has brought a fresh breath to such new American poetry and poetics after clearing the ground, hence, the inheritance power of American culture has been exhibited. Based on the imagery of axe in both Chinese and American poetic tradition, this paper intends to investigate the underlying causes for the innovation in modern American poetry, and the adaptation and semiotic fitness in poetry composition brought by Chinese culturally conceptual metaphors “handle-chopping axe” and “principles of sharpening an axe handle.”

Key words: handle-chopping axe, sharpening-and-shaping tool of composition, cultural inheritance, variation and adaptation, semiotic fitness