新文化運動潮流中，知識份子追求新變，希望能藉由拋去傳統、甚至移植西方文化到中國，而達到文化重建的目的。在中國追求現代化之初，胡適發動文學革命，他相信新文學可以表露新思想、新精神，新文學之所以為「新」，乃由於對其所面臨的時代環境具有批判精神，並且充滿勇氣向西方追尋模範。 二十一世紀的今天，多元的文字運用與口語化的書寫成為趨勢。近年有以胡適信徒自居者，反對寫作使用典故與成語，聲稱成語與現代生活無關，並認為反傳統的寫作方式乃胡適的理想。如此獨斷的論調不但曲解胡適本意，亦有違胡適提倡白話文的精神。 回顧九十多年前，胡適提倡平淺的白話文，反抗艱深的古文駢文；他強調文學的社會寫實效用，忽略抒情傳統與載道責任。但深一層探討，他與傳統的關係與他倡導的反傳統是頗有差距的。本文檢視胡適以論詩為主的文學理論，試圖釐清其受傳統啟迪的素質，探討其文學主張中的古典元素。

Riding on the New Culture Movement tidal front, the intellectuals pursue new changes and hope to achieve the goal of cultural reconstruction by discarding the tradition, and even by transplanting the Western culture to China. In the beginning of pursuing modernization of China, Hu Shi starts the literary revolution. He believes the new-vernacular literature may reveal the new thought and the new spirit, the reason why new-vernacular literature is deemed “new” is because of its critique spirit when facing the environment of the era, and because of its abounding courage to pursue paradigm from the West. Hu Shi advocates the even shallow vernacular literature, revolts against the abstruse classical Chinese literature in antithetical style; He emphasizes the social practical effectiveness of the literature, and neglects the traditional function of expressing feelings and the social responsibility of propagandizing moral and social values. But if we explore at a deeper level, there’s quite some disparity between the anti-tradition he advocates and the relation between he himself and the tradition. This article is to examine Hu Shi’s literature theory which focuses primarily on commenting the poem, then attempt to sort out the fibre in him which is enlightened by the tradition, and explore the classical element in his argument of literature.