Top 10 Romantic Figures in China

Author: Ding Guoqi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Hu Shi, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, Xu Zhimo, Eileen Chang, Xiao Hong, Fu Lei, Sanmao—they are literary and artistic masters we are all familiar with, who have created extraordinary artistic achievements. In their life journeys, they also had extraordinary emotional experiences that ordinary people could never compare. Perhaps, it is their unique emotional worlds that endowed them with diverse personal charms; it is their rich emotional lives that ignited their irrepressible creative inspiration. Hu Shi, who had love throughout his life but struggled to find it, found that the influence of Western culture could not overcome the heavy shackles of traditional ethics and morality. It is hard to imagine this frail body, torn between love and, as the brave leader of the New Culture Movement, bravely attacking traditional culture. Xiao Hong, the famous female writer of the 1930s who was highly regarded by Lu Xun, wandered alone in the search for and escape from love, enduring hardships and trials. She and Xiao Jun were like two hedgehogs, attracting each other while deeply hurting each other. Love helped her ignite the flames of creativity, but it also extinguished her life’s lamp too early. Gu Cheng, living in his own poetic world, was like an immature and mentally disabled child who, after experiencing despair, turned to extreme self-harm and self-mutilation. In the moment he raised his axe at the woman who had once been his love, he also used that hand, which had once left bright and moving verses for the literary world, to write a scene of bloodshed for contemporary literature. For great artists, their emotional journeys are like another window into their lives. Through this window, we can more deeply feel the heartbeat and tremors of their lives, and touch the footprints and creases of their inner selves.