Abstract
From the outbreak of the September 18th Incident to the conclusion of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945, this period marked a pivotal chapter in both modern Chinese history and modern Chinese literary history. Literary societies emerged as crucial platforms through which intellectuals and patriots mobilized cultural forces for national salvation and sought paths to redemption. Founded by An Ruoding and fellow intellectuals, Spirit-Forging Society (Zhuhun Xueshe) occupies a significant place in the landscape of modern literary associations. The society's members contributed a substantial body of poetry, much of it published in Great Hero Spirit Weekly, which serves as a representative corpus for examining late modern classical poetics. Poems themed on the “Great Hero Spirit” were largely composed in response to contemporary events, bearing a distinctly time-bound character. They exemplify a unique mode of “painstaking poetic creation.” As “sorrowful calls” and “solemn bugle blasts,” these works evolved into some of the most enduring and impassioned poetic voices of the era. The ethical vision of poetic justice advocated by the Spirit-Forging poets, together with their embodiment of an iron-willed ethos of life, deservers full empathy and critical recognition.
Keywords
Spirit-Forging Society (Zhuhun Xueshe), martial spirit era, the Great Hero Spirit, poetic justice
First Page
168
Last Page
180
Recommended Citation
Luo, Shijin. 2026. "Spirit-Forging Society: Reviving Poetic Voice to “the Great Hero Spirit” and “Iron-Blood Ethos”." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 46, (2): pp.168-180. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol46/iss2/16
