Contemporary Essays - Selected Essays of Guo Feng

Author: Guo Feng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: Guo Feng's original name was Guo Jia gui, and he was born in 1918 in Putian City, Putian County①, a "scholarly family." Putian is known for its beautiful scenery, hardworking and simple people, and well-developed cultural and educational institutions. Putian Opera is famous nationwide. Kong Shangren once said: "‘The landscape and customs of a place are the extreme expression of a poet's temperament.’② This insight is profound. The beautiful and lovely mountains, landscapes, and culture of his hometown have molded Guo Feng's spirit and have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his prose writing. Guo Feng has the enviable heritage of a scholarly family. His sixth-generation ancestor, Guo Shangxian, was a jinshi (imperial scholar) during the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, serving as the Education Commissioner of Sichuan and the Vice Minister of the Imperial Court of Justice. He was skilled in calligraphy, painting, seal carving, and wrote a diary-style prose titled Diary of My Journey to Sichuan. His fifth-generation ancestor, Guo Zishou, was an expert in the I Ching (Book of Changes) and wrote a titled Notes of a Mountain Folk. His fourth-generation ancestor, Guo Shixing, was a renowned calligrapher and seal carver during the Qing Dynasty. Guo Feng grew up in the Laojian Hall, which was built by his ancestor Guo Shangxian. The hall was adorned with numerous famous flowers and grasses, artificial hills and rocks, and a small artificial lake. Guo Feng's grandfather and father passed away early, so he lived a difficult life as an orphan and widow from the age of three. However, the artistic and academic achievements of his ancestors, their free creation in prose forms, always inspired and guided Guo Feng. The poetic and picturesque fairy-tale world of Laojian Hall became one of the elements that gave Guo Feng's prose its fairy-tale-like charm. Guo Feng was diligent and intelligent from a young age, loved nature, and showed early literary talent. Before the liberation, he published a large number of poems, short stories, reports, fairy-tale poems, children's prose, prose poems, and prose. Among these, only the fairy-tale poems were collected and published as Puppet Show. Li Liewen praised them by saying: "Mr. Guo Feng's fairy-tale poems have opened up a new realm for Chinese new poetry, becoming a new flower in the field of new poetry."