Xu Zhimo (, , Mandarin: , 15 January 1897 – 19 November 1931) was a Chinese romantic poet who strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms and to reshape it under the influences of Western poetry and the vernacular Chinese language. He is considered one of the most important figures of modern Chinese poetry.

Biography

Xu Zhimo has several names. He is best known as Xú Zhìmó (; Wu IPA: , Wu pinyin: Zhi Tsymu; Mandarin IPA: , Wades-Giles: Hsü Chih-mo), while he was born Xú Zhāngxù () with the courtesy name Yǒusēn (). Xu was born in Haining, Zhejiang and graduated from Hangzhou High School, a well-known school in

Southern China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...

. He married Zhang Youyi in 1915 and proceeded to attend Peiyang University in 1916 (now Tianjin University) to study law. In 1917, he moved to

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

(PKU) due to the law department of Peiyang University merging into PKU. In 1918, he traveled to the United States to earn his bachelor's degree at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in th ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...

, where he took up a major in political and social sciences, along with a minor in history. Shortly afterward, he enrolled at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

to pursue a graduate degree in economics and politics in 1919. He left New York in 1921, having found the U.S. "intolerable", to go study in England at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

, where he fell in love with English Romantic poetry like that of

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

and Shelley. He was also influenced by the French romantic and

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

poets, some of whose works he translated into Chinese. In 1922 he returned to China and became a leading figure of the modern poetry movement. In 1923, he founded the

Crescent Moon Society The Crescent Moon Society () was a Chinese literary society founded by the poet Xu Zhimo in 1923, which operated until 1931. It was named after ''The Crescent Moon'', a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. The society began as a loosely-organized dining ass ...

, a Chinese

literary society A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newsle ...

that was part of the larger

New Culture Movement The New Culture Movement () was a movement in China in the 1910s and 1920s that criticized classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture based upon progressive, modern and western ideals like democracy and science. Arising out of ...

, believing in "art for art's sake" and often engaging in running debates with the "art for politics' sake" (

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

-driven)

League of the Left-Wing Writers __NOTOC__ The League of Left-Wing Writers (), commonly abbreviated as the Zuolian in Chinese, was an organization of writers formed in Shanghai, China, on 2 March 1930, at the instigation of the Chinese Communist Party and the influence of the ce ...

.to excerpt
/ref> When the

Bengali poet Bengali poetry is a rich tradition of poetry in the Bengali language and has many different forms. Originating in the Bengal region of South Asia, the history of Bengali poetry underwent three successive stages of development: poetry of the ear ...

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

visited China, Xu Zhimo served as one of his oral interpreters. Xu was also renowned for his use of vernacular Chinese; he was one of the first Chinese writers to successfully naturalize Western romantic forms into modern Chinese poetry. He worked as an editor and professor at several schools before his death on 19 November 1931, dying in a plane crash near

Jinan Jinan (), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized as Tsinan, is the Capital (political), capital of Shandong province in East China, Eastern China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is the second-largest city i ...

and Tai'an, Shandong"Xu Zhimo." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2011.
/ref> while flying on a

Stinson Detroiter The Stinson Detroiter was a six-seat cabin airliner for passengers or freight designed and built by the Stinson Aircraft Syndicate, later the ''Stinson Aircraft Corporation''. Two distinct designs used the Detroiter name, a biplane and a monopla ...

from

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

. He left behind four collections of verse and several volumes of translations from various languages.

Love affairs

Xu Zhimo's various love affairs with Zhang Youyi, Lin Huiyin, and Lu Xiaoman are well known in China. Xu married Zhang Youyi,Reminiscences of Xu Zhimo
/ref> (the sister of the politician Zhang Junmai) on 10 October 1915. This was an arranged marriage that went against Xu's belief in free and simple love. Although Zhang gave birth to two sons, Xu still couldn't accept her. While in London in 1921, Xu met and fell in love with Lin Huiyin (the daughter of Lin Changmin). He divorced Zhang in March 1922. Inspired by this newly found love, Xu wrote a large number of poems during this time. Lin and Xu became close friends. However, she was already betrothed to

Liang Sicheng Liang Sicheng (; 20 April 1901 – 9 January 1972) was a Chinese architect and architectural historian, known as the father of modern Chinese architecture. His father, Liang Qichao, was one of the most prominent Chinese scholars of the early ...

by his father. Xu's last lover was Lu Xiaoman, who was married to Wang Geng, a friend of Xu. The marriage had been arranged by her parents and she felt trapped in this loveless marriage. When Xu and Lu met, they quickly bonded over the similarity of their respective experiences with arranged marriages. When it came to be known that they were in love, both were scorned by their parents and friends. Lu divorced her husband in 1925 and married Xu the next year. Their honeymoon period did not last long however and Lu gradually became more and more depressed. Because Lu was wasteful and Xu's parents refused to lend them money, Xu had to take several jobs in different cities to keep up with the lifestyle Lu desired. She was widowed when Xu died in an airplane crash. Xu was also romantically linked to American author Pearl S. Buck and American journalist

Agnes Smedley Agnes Smedley (February 23, 1892 – May 6, 1950) was an American journalist, writer, and activist who supported the Indian Independence Movement and the Chinese Communist Revolution. Raised in a poverty-stricken miner's family in Missouri and Co ...

. In an obituary, writer Wen Yuan-ning commented that Xu's "relations with women are exactly like Shelley's. Let no woman flatter herself that Tse-mo has ever loved her; he has only loved his own inner version of Ideal Beauty."

Airplane crash

On 19 November 1931, Xu Zhimo prepared to leave Nanking to attend a lecture given by Lin Huiyin at a university in

Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. He boarded a

China Airways Federal The China National Aviation Corporation () was a Chinese airline which was nationalized after the Chinese Communist Party took control in 1949, and merged into the People's Aviation Company of China () in 1952. It was a major airline under the ...

, an aircraft contracted by

Chunghwa Post Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. is the official postal service of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China). Chunghwa Post was a government agency of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications until 2003, when it was reorganized into a governm ...

to deliver airmail on the Nanjing-Beijing route. However, when the flight arrived in the Jinan area, the flight encountered severe fog, leaving the pilot with no clear view to land. The plane descended into the mountainous area below unnoticed as both the pilots were looking for the course according to the map. When the aircraft was aiming to turn left to go back to the course again, it hit the peak of a mountain and broke off the right wing. The plane spun out of control and crashed into the mountains near

City and

Tai'an Tai'an () is a prefecture-level city in Western Shandong Province of the People's Republic of China. Centered on Mount Tai, the city borders the provincial capital of Jinan to the north, Zibo to the east, Linyi to the southeast, Liaocheng to ...

City, in

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

province. Xu Zhimo, who suffered from fatal

cerebral trauma A traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as an intracranial injury, is an injury to the brain caused by an external force. TBI can be classified based on severity (ranging from mild traumatic brain injury TBI/concussionto severe traumatic ...

and several cuts on his body, was killed instantly as well as one of the two pilots. The first officer however, survived the initial impact, but also perished due to protracted rescue. The accident was attributed to both pilots' misjudgement of the flight's altitude as well as their failure to recognize the terrain. However, it was rumoured that the death of Xu Zhimo was murder, although this was confirmed to be untrue.

Cambridge poem

Xu Zhimo's best-known poem is ''Zaibie Kangqiao'' (), variously translated into English as "On Leaving Cambridge", "Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again", "Goodbye Again, Cambridge", "Leaving the Revisited Cambridge" etc. To commemorate Xu, in July 2008, a stone of white Beijing

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

was installed at the Backs of

(near the bridge over the

River Cam The River Cam () is the main river flowing through Cambridge in eastern England. After leaving Cambridge, it flows north and east before joining the River Great Ouse to the south of Ely, at Pope's Corner. The total distance from Cambridge to ...

). The one used here (by permission) was translated by Guohua Chen and published in the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

's 800th anniversary book, and differs from the one quoted in the carvings of the Xu Zhimo Friendship Garden added around the Memorial stone by King's College in 2018.

References

External links