Abstract: “Literature” in the modern sense is fundamentally defined by its modernity. As a literary genre within modern literature, New Poetry must therefore have modern poeticity as one of its defining stylistic features—the poeticity that is rooted in and manifested through modern linguistic forms. As a modern poetic genre, the language of New Poetry is inherently a prose-inflected form. While this linguistic form may manifest externally as line breaks, line breaks cannot conversely be treated as the sole criterion for judging the generic identity of New Poetry. It follows that a number of works commonly categorized as “prose poetry” are in fact modern poetry. For Baudelaire, prose poetry was championed as a freer form better suited to articulating modern poeticity; likewise in China, it initially became synonymous with New Poetry for its radical formal transgression. The crux of this lies in the fact that it is a poetic genre that conveys modern poeticity through modern linguistic forms; or to put it more precisely, the term “prose” serves to characterize the modern attributes of the linguistic medium of New Poetry.

Key words: prose poetry, New Poetry, modern poeticity, linguistic form

摘要： 现代意义上的“文学”以其现代性为基本标志,作为现代文学的一种文体,新诗文体特征之一应在于其“现代诗意”,这一现代诗意依托并表现于现代的语言形式中。作为一种现代诗体,新诗的语言本身就是一种散文化的形式,这一语言形式有可能在外在形式上表现为分行,但分行并不能反过来成为判断新诗文体的唯一标准。因此,一些一般被认作是“散文诗”的写作,其实本身就是现代诗。在波德莱尔那里,散文诗作为一种更加自由、更加适宜表达现代诗意的形式而被提倡;同样在中国,它首先也因其形式上的反叛性而一度成为新诗的代名词。这其中的关键在于,它是一种用现代的语言形式来表达现代诗意的诗歌文体,或者说,“散文”二字乃是对新诗的语言媒介之现代特征的突出。

关键词: 散文诗, 新诗, 现代诗意, 语言形式