Modern Archaics examines the transformation of Chinese classical-style poetry in the first three decades of the 20th century and its complex relationship with the development of modern culture. By closely examining a group of previously understudied poets and critics in the midst of historical turmoil, and radical social and cultural changes, Wu's tour-de-force study demonstrates that classical poetry writing in this era was neither stagnant nor inured to social change, but rather emerged as a dynamic force that interacted with modern culture and society.

This thematically coherent volume is comprised of three parts with two chapters each. Throughout the book, Wu's insight on the function and significance of “archaics” in modern times is brilliantly illustrated by her multifaceted and theoretically informed approach to the question. Part one, titled “A Formal Feeling Comes,” highlights a major concern at the end of the Qing, about the complex relationship between historical trauma and the poetry of mourning, such as reflected in the ci (song-lyric) writing on the aftermath of the catastrophic events of 1900 (chapter one). From an aesthetic perspective, as Wu argues in chapter two, cultural trauma and the complex predicament of dealing with drastic change freed poets from conventionalized perceptions and helped to foster in their works new and improvisatory sensibilities.

Part two, “The Lure of Intellectual Elegance,” uses a sociological approach to investigate the cultural dynamics of classical-style poetry and its practices by different affective communities, from loyalists to modern-day college students. It provides a fresh perspective especially on the previously ignored and even caricatured group of “remnants from old culture” (yilao yishao), who participated in an increasingly divided social and cultural space, and positioned themselves within the forming literary field. In the face of irreversible time and the new metropolis, they recreated a phantom of the empire in the closed space of their poetry, casting painfully nostalgic looks upon a disappearing culture.

Part three, “Lighting the Modern Torch with Ancient Fire,” deals with the traveling poets and text, with a focus on cross-fertilization through travel and translation, which opened up new horizons for poetic experimentation. Chapter six examines a neglected practice, namely the translating and rewriting of Western poetry using classical-style verse forms. Attention is paid to the role of poetic form in the meaning-making process of translation, as well as to considerations of the possibilities and limits of poetic and cultural commensurability.

Dominant ideologies in modern times have dismissed traditional Chinese literature as “backward” and “incapable” of conveying new, “revolutionary” knowledge and information. It is, therefore, the biggest contribution of the Modern Archaics to have rescued the classical-style poetry from its obliteration in modern Chinese historiography. By excavating this lost body of literature, Wu intended to reconstruct a more honest version of modern Chinese literary history, yet to engage in such a study Wu had to begin from bare ground. She had to comb through a mountain-load of newspapers and journals published in the late Qing and early Republican era, and to draw extensively on a broad range of Chinese scholarship, ranging from little-known works from the Republican period to current articles, monographs and reprints. By so doing, she was able to establish poetic archives of mostly first-hand materials and construct fresh analytical discourses.

Among these interpretive modules of her own, “ornamental lyric” is the most creative and applicable one, and hence another important contribution to the study of Chinese literature. Wu regards it not only as a stylistic formalism but also as a social practice, a refined, even elitist lifestyle. She argues that this shared aesthetic style, ideological commitment and social practice is one prominent reaction to the political, cultural and social issues that came to bear on early twentieth-century poetry.

The third unique contribution that Wu has made in the Modern Archaics is her examination into the phenomenon of using the classical form to render Western poetry, which has been frowned upon and seldom studied in either English or Chinese scholarship. Wu aptly argues that the traditional poetic form serves as a stable, grounded cultural certainty in late Qing and early Republican translational practice and effectively assimilates foreignness into indigenous modes of poetic writing. This not only creates an aesthetically and auditorily pleasing experience but also resonates well with the Chinese readership. This understanding significantly subverts the entrenched, biased view of the ineffectuality and demise of the traditional form in the modern era.

Last but not least, Wu challenges the idea of a supposedly universal development of literary modernity according to the strictures of Western literary paradigms. She discusses at length in the introduction her reservation about the use of “literary modernity” in studying this body of literature, and recommends going beyond the framework of “modernity.” This is why, as far as I can understand, she has attempted to formulate a template that couples “modern” and “archaics” in order to emphasize their interactions and conflicts.

Modern Archaics provides an informative reading for undergraduates and sets up an inspiring model for graduate students to follow. I celebrate this major addition to the study of classical-style poetry in modern Chinese literature and anticipate more works to emerge on this extremely important yet unfortunately understudied topic after Wu's path-breaking work.