CZWM Love Words

Author: Ouyang Zhexue, Yang Xinmin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-08-01
Features: Xu Zhimo (1897–1931) was a modern poet and prose writer. His given name was Zhang Xu, and his pen names included Nanhu and Yunzhonghe. 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 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 Chinese 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. He served as the translator during the visit of the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore to China. 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 became a professor at Guanghua University, Da Xia University, and Nanjing Central University. In 1927, he participated in founding the Crescent Bookstore. After the monthly Crescent was launched the following year, he became its editor-in-chief. He also traveled to the UK, the US, Japan, and India. In 1930, he became a member of the China Committee of the China Cultural Foundation and was elected a member of the British Poetry Society. That winter, he went to Peking University and Beijing Women's University to teach. In early 1931, he co-founded the quarterly Shikkan with Chen Mengjia and Fang Weide and was elected a member of the Writers' Association of China. On November 19 of the same year, he boarded a plane from Nanjing to Peking but crashed near Jinan due to fog, killing himself. His collected works include poetry collections such as Zhimo's Poems, A Night in, The Tiger and Other Poems, and Cloud Travel, prose collections such as Fallen Leaves, Fragments of Paris, Self-Analysis, and Autumn, the novel-prose collection The Wheel, the play Bian Kun Gang (co-written with Lu Xiaoman), diaries such as Notes on Ai Mei and Zhimo's Diary, and translations such as The Complete Works of Arthur Symons. His works have been compiled into The Collected Works of Xu Zhimo. Xu's poetry is characterized by fresh wording, harmonious rhythms, novel metaphors, rich imagination, beautiful imagery, ethereal moods, and dynamic variations, all while pursuing artistic form and elegance. He is a representative poet of the Crescent Society. His prose also has a distinct style and achieves a success comparable to his poetry, with works such as Self-Analysis, Wings, What I Know of, and Evenings in Mountain being celebrated masterpieces. The great poet Xu Zhimo left behind beautiful poems one after another. This book selects and compiles dozens of exquisite phrases from his writings on love, nature, life, society, and aesthetic art, offering a glimpse into the poet's heart and literary thoughts.