Complete Collection of Essays by Xu Zhimo

Author: Xu Zhimo / Han Shishan (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Xu Zhimo (1897–1931) was a modern poet and prose writer. His given name was Zhang Xu, and his pen names included Nanhu, Yunzhonghe, and others. He was from Haining, Zhejiang. He graduated from Hangzhou No. 1 High School in 1915 and studied successively at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tianjin Beiyang University, and Peking University. In 1918, he went to the United States to study banking. In 1921, he went to the UK for further studies, enrolling as a special student at the University of Cambridge to study political economy. During his two years at Cambridge, he was deeply influenced by Western education, as well as the romanticism and aestheticism of Western and European poets. In 1921, he began writing new poetry. Upon returning to China in 1922, he published a large number of poems and essays in newspapers and magazines. In 1923, he participated in founding the Crescent Society and joined the Literature Research Association. In 1924, he co-founded the weekly magazine Modern Review with Hu Shi, Chen Xilin, and others, and served as a professor at Peking University. When the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore visited China, Xu served as his translator. In 1925, he traveled to Europe, visiting countries such as the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and France. In 1926, he edited the literary supplement Shijing for the Morning News in Beijing, collaborating with Wen Yiduo, Zhu Xiang, and others to promote the regularization of new poetry, which significantly influenced the development of new poetic art. That same year, he moved to Shanghai and served as a professor at Guanghua University, Daxia University, and Nanjing Central University. In 1927, he participated in founding the Crescent Bookstore. After the Crescent monthly magazine was launched the following year, he became its editor-in-chief. He also traveled abroad to the UK, the US, Japan, and India. In 1930, he became a member of the China Committee of the Cultural Foundation and was elected a member of the British Poetry Society. That winter, he taught at Peking University and Beijing Women's University. In early 1931, he co-founded the quarterly Poetry magazine with Chen Mengjia and Fang Weide, and was elected as a council member of the Chinese branch of the PEN Club. On November 19 of the same year, he took a plane from Nanjing to Beijing but crashed near Jinan due to fog, killing himself. His works include poetry collections such as Poems of Xu Zhimo, A Night in, The Tiger and Other Poems, and Cloud Travel, prose collections such as Fallen Leaves, Fringes of Paris, Self-Exposures, and Autumn, the novel-prose collection The Wheel, the play Bian Kun Gang (co-written with Lu Xiaoman), diaries such as Notes on Mei, and Xu Zhimo's Diaries, and translations such as The Collected Stories of Mabel Loos. His works have been compiled into The Collected Works of Xu Zhimo. Xu's poetry is characterized by fresh phrasing, harmonious rhythms, original metaphors, rich imagination, beautiful imagery, ethereal spirit, and dynamic variation. He pursued artistic formality and elegance, exhibiting a distinct artistic personality and becoming a representative poet of the Crescent Society. His prose also has a unique style and achieved accomplishments comparable to his poetry, with works such as Self-Exposures, Wishing to Fly, What I Know of Cambridge, and Evenings at Mountain being celebrated masterpieces.