Guo Moruo Explained

Guo Moruo
Native Name:zh|郭沫若
Office3:Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles
Term Start3:1949
Term End3:1978
Successor3:Zhou Yang
Office2:Chairman of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Successor2:Fang Yi
Term Start2:1949
Term End2:1978
Office1:President of the University of Science and Technology of China
Term Start1:1958
Term End1:1978
Successor1:Yan Jici (1980)
Birth Date:16 November 1892
Birth Place:Leshan, Sichuan, Qing dynasty
Death Place:Beijing, China
Alma Mater:Kyushu University
Spouse:
    Partner:Yu Lizhen (1912–1937)
    Huang Dinghui (1907–2017)
    Children:8 sons and 3 daughters
    Awards:1948 Research Fellow of the Academia Sinica
    Module:
    Embed:yes
    Pseudonym:Dingtang (Chinese: 鼎堂)
    Period:Modern (20th century)
    Years Active:from 1916
    Module2:
    Child:yes
    C:郭沫若
    P:Guō Mòruò
    J:Gwok3 Mut6-joek6
    Also Known As:Courtesy name
    C2:鼎堂
    P2:Dǐngtáng
    Altname3:Birth name
    T3:郭開貞
    S3:郭开贞
    P3:Guō Kāizhēn

    Guo Moruo (November 16, 1892 – June 12, 1978),[1] courtesy name Dingtang, was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official.

    Biography

    Family history

    Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November 10 or 16, in the small town of Shawan, located on the Dadu River some 40km (30miles) southwest from what was then called the city of Jiading (Lu) (Chia-ting (Lu), Chinese: 嘉定(路)), and now is the central urban area of the prefecture level city of Leshan in Sichuan Province.

    At the time of Guo's birth, Shawan was a town of some 180 families.[2]

    Guo's father's ancestors were Hakkas from Ninghua County in Tingzhou Prefecture, near the western border of Fujian. They moved to Sichuan in the second half of the 17th century, after Sichuan had lost much of its population to the rebels/bandits of Zhang Xianzhong (1605–1647). According to family legend, the only possessions that Guo's ancestors brought to Sichuan were things they could carry on their backs. Guo's great-grandfather, Guo Xianlin, was the first in the family to achieve a degree of prosperity. Guo Xianlin's sons established the Guo clan as the leaders of the local river shipping business, and thus important people in that entire region of Sichuan. It was only then that the Guo clan members became able to send their children to school.[2]

    Guo's father, one of whose names may possibly have been Guo Mingxing (1854–1939), had to drop out of school at the age of 13 and then spent six months as an apprentice at a salt well. Thereafter he entered his father's business, a shrewd and smart man who achieved some local renown as a Chinese medical doctor, traded successfully in oils, opium, liquor, and grain and operated a money changing business. His business success allowed him to increase the family's real estate and salt well holdings.[2]

    Guo's mother, in contrast, came from a scholar-official background. She was a daughter of Du Zhouzhang, a holder of the coveted jinshi degree. Whilst serving as an acting magistrate in Huangping prefecture (Chinese: [[:zh:黄平州|黄平州]]), now part of Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, in eastern Guizhou, Du died in 1858 while fighting Miao rebels, when his daughter (the future mother of Guo Moruo) was less than a year old. She married into the Guo family in 1872, when she was fourteen.[2]

    Childhood

    Guo was the eighth child of his mother. Three of his siblings had died before he was born, but more children were born later, so by the time he went to school, he had seven siblings.[2]

    Guo also had the childhood name Guo Wenbao ("Cultivated Leopard"), given due to a dream his mother had on the night he was conceived.[2]

    A few years before Guo was born, his parents retained a private tutor, Shen Huanzhang, to provide education for their children, in the hope of them later passing civil service examinations. A precocious child, Guo started studying at this "family school" in the spring of 1897, at the early age of four and a half. Initially, his studies were based on Chinese classics, but with the government education reforms of 1901, mathematics and other modern subjects started to be introduced.[2]

    When in the fall of 1903 a number of public schools were established in Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, the Guo children started going there to study. Guo's oldest brother, Guo Kaiwen (1877–1936), entered one of them, Dongwen Xuetang, a secondary school preparing students for study in Japan; the next oldest brother, Guo Kaizou, joined Wubei Xuetang, a military school. Guo Kaiwen soon became instrumental in exposing his brother and sisters still in Shawan to modern books and magazines that allowed them to learn about the wide world outside.[2]

    Guo Kaiwen continued to be a role model for his younger brothers when in February 1905 he left for Japan, to study law and administration at Tokyo Imperial University on a provincial government' scholarship.[2]

    After passing competitive examinations, in early 1906 Guo Moruo started attending the new upper-level primary school in Jiading. It was a boarding school located in a former Buddhist temple and the boy lived on premises. He went on to a middle school in 1907, acquiring by this time the reputation of an academically gifted student but a troublemaker. His peers respected him and often elected him a delegate to represent their interests in front of the school administration. Often spearheading student-faculty conflicts, he was expelled and reinstated a few times, and finally expelled permanently in October 1909.[2]

    Guo was glad to be expelled, as he now had a reason to go to the provincial capital Chengdu to continue his education there.[2]

    In October 1911, Guo was surprised by his mother announcing that a marriage was arranged for him. He went along with his family's wishes, marrying his appointed bride, Zhang Jinghua, sight-unseen in Shawan in March 1912. Immediately, he regretted this marriage, and five days after the marriage, he left his ancestral home and returned to Chengdu, leaving his wife behind. He never formally divorced her, but apparently never lived with her either.[2]

    Study abroad

    Following his elder brothers, Guo left China in December 1913, reaching Japan in early January 1914. After a year of preparatory study in Tokyo, he entered Sixth Higher School in Okayama.[2] When visiting a friend of his hospitalized in Saint Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, in the summer of 1916, Guo fell in love with Sato Tomiko, a Japanese woman from a Christian family, who worked at the hospital as a student nurse. Sato would become his common-law wife. They were to stay together for 20 years, until the outbreak of the war, and to have five children together.[3]

    After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushu Imperial University in Fukuoka.[2] He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely the works of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Along with numerous translations, he published his first anthology of poems, entitled The Goddesses (1921). He co-founded the Creation Society in Shanghai, which promoted modern and vernacular literature.

    The war years

    Guo joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. He was involved in the Communist Nanchang Uprising and fled to Japan after its failure. He stayed there for 10 years studying Chinese ancient history. During that time he published his work on inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze vessels, Corpus of Inscriptions on Bronzes from the Two Zhou Dynasties (Chinese: 两周金文辭大系考釋).[4] During this period he published ten monographs on archeology of the Shang and Zhou periods and ancient Chinese script, thus establishing himself as a preeminent scholar in the field.

    In the summer of 1937, shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities,[3] and in 1939 he remarried to, a Shanghai actress.[3] [5] After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family.

    In early February 1942, Guō Mòruò created a five-act historical drama 虎符, Hǔfú ("Tiger Talisman") in a single nine-day period.

    As a communist leader

    Along with holding important government offices in the People's Republic of China, Guo was a prolific writer, not just of poetry but also fiction, plays, autobiographies, translations, and historical and philosophical treatises. He was the first President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and remained so from its founding in 1949 until his death in 1978. He was also the first president of University of Science & Technology of China (USTC), a new type of university established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) after the founding of the People's Republic of China and aimed at fostering high-level personnel in the fields of science and technology.

    For the first 15 years of the PRC, Guo, with his extensive knowledge of Chinese history and culture, was the ultimate arbiter of philosophical matters relating to art, education, and literature, although all of his most vital and important work had been written before 1949.

    Guo was one of the leaders of China's delegation to the December 1957 Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Conference, along with Liu Liangmo, Liu Ningyi, and Ji Chaoding.[6]

    With the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Guo became an early target of persecution. To save face, he wrote a public self-criticism and declared that all his previous works were in error and should be burned. He then turned to writing poetry praising Mao's wife Jiang Qing and the Cultural Revolution and also denounced former friends and colleagues as counterrevolutionaries. However, this was not enough to protect his family. Two of his sons, Guo Minying and Guo Shiying, "committed suicide" in 1967 and 1968 following "criticism" or persecution by Red Guards.[7] [8]

    Because of his sycophantic loyalty to Mao, he survived the Cultural Revolution and received commendation by the chairman at the 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in April 1969. By the early 1970s, he had regained most of his influence. He enjoyed all the privileges of the highest-ranking party elites, including residence in a luxurious manor house once owned by a Qing official, a staff of assigned servants, a state limousine, and other perks. Guo also maintained a large collection of antique furniture and curios in his home.

    In 1978, following Mao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four, the 85 year old Guo, as he lay dying in a Beijing hospital, penned a poem denouncing the Gang.

    Chinese: 什么令人振奋的消息! (What wonderful news!)

    Chinese: 删除四人帮。 (Rooting out the Gang of Four.)

    Chinese: 文学流氓。 (The literary rogue.)

    Chinese: 政治流氓。 (The political rogue.)

    Chinese: 险恶的顾问。 (The sinister adviser.)

    Chinese: 白骨精。 (The White-Boned Demon.)

    Chinese: 所有由铁扫帚一扫而空。 (All swept away by the iron broom.)

    The White-Boned Demon was a character in the Ming-era novel Journey to the West, an evil shapeshifting being, and was a popular derogatory nickname for Jiang Qing.

    In March of the same year, (1978), Guo defied illness to attend the First National Science Conference, the first of its kind to be held since the end of the Cultural Revolution. He was visibly frail and it would be the last time he was seen in public before his death three months later.

    Guo was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1951.

    Legacy

    Guo was held in high regard in Chinese contemporary literature, history and archaeology. He once called himself the Chinese answer to Goethe and this appraisal was widely accepted. Zhou Yang said: "You are Goethe, but you are the Goethe of the New Socialist Era of China."("Chinese: 你是歌德,但你是社会主义时代新中国的歌德。")[9]

    He was criticised as the first of "Four Contemporary Shameless Writers".[10] [11] [12] For example, he spoke highly of Mao Zedong's calligraphy, to the extent that he justified what the CCP leader had written mistakenly.[13] His historical works have been described by historians as "near-pseudohistorical" due to his political manipulation of ancient Chinese classics.[14] And during the Cultural Revolution, he published a book called Li Bai and Du Fu in which he praised Li Bai while belittling Du Fu, which was thought to flatter Mao Zedong.[15] His attitude to the Gang of Four changed sharply before and after its downfall.

    In his private life, he was also known to have affairs with many women, whom he abandoned shortly afterwards. One of them, Li Chen (Chinese: 立忱), allegedly committed suicide after his betrayal, although this is disputed.[16]

    Family

    Guo had five children (four sons and a daughter) with Sato Tomiko and six with Yu Liqun (four sons and two daughters). An article published in the 2000s said that eight out of the eleven were alive, and that three have died.[17]

    With Sato Tomiko (listed chronologically in the order of birth):

    With Yu Liqun (listed chronologically in the order of birth):

    Commemoration

    Honours

    Bibliography

    This is a select bibliography. A fuller bibliography may be found in: A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900-1949, edited by Milena Doleželová-Velingerová et al.[28]

    Poetry, stories, novellas, plays

    Autobiography

    Guo wrote nine autobiographical works:[39]

    Historical, educational, and philosophical treatises

    Other nonfiction

    Translations

    Contributions

    Further reading

    Journals

    External links

    |-|-

    Notes and References

    1. Web site: Raise a glass to painter Fu Baoshi, MA. www.chinadaily.com.cn. 2018-10-26.
    2. [David Tod Roy]
    3. Yan Lu. "Re-understanding Japan: Chinese Perspectives, 1895-1945". University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Partial text on Google Books
    4. Book: Guo, Moro . Corpus of Inscriptions on Bronzes from the Two Zhou Dynasties . zh:两周金文辭大系考釋 . zh-hant . 978-7-03-010656-8. 2002. 科学出版社 .
    5. http://www.cctv.com/program/e_documentary/20080912/100992_2.shtml The Westernization of Chinese Theatre
    6. Book: Gao, Yunxiang . Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century . 2021 . . 9781469664606 . Chapel Hill, NC.
    7. https://web.archive.org/web/20090325122009/http://www.china-historical-figures.com/bilder_assets/Krev_Ausstellung_Biographien.pdf - Portraits of China's historical figures
    8. Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2004-07/22/content_1622442.htm . zh:《郭沫若的晚年岁月》:郭民英与郭世英 . Guo Moruo's late years: Guo Minying and Guo Shiying . . 2004-07-22 . 2008-11-10 . 2009-02-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090225074553/http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2004-07/22/content_1622442.htm . dead . . This article is based on the book Book: zh:郭沫若的晚年岁月 . Guo Moruo's Late Years . Feng . Xigang (冯锡刚) . 2004 . 中央文献出版社 . 7-5073-1622-X . zh-hans.
    9. Book: http://lianzai.china.com/books/html/1440/6937/92316.html . https://web.archive.org/web/20060425052416/http://lianzai.china.com/books/html/1440/6937/92316.html . dead . 2006-04-25 . zh:现代名人的后代 . The heirs of the famous people of our times . Wu . Dongping (吴东平) . 2006-03-01 . zh . Hubei People's Press.
    10. Book: Hu . Zhiwei (胡志偉) . zh:黑暗與光明:海峽兩岸的對比 . Chinese: 台灣商務印書館 [Taiwan Commercial Press] . Taiwan . 1987 . https://books.google.com/books?id=a-1pAAAAIAAJ&q=%22%E5%9B%9B%E5%A4%A7%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E8%87%89%22+%22%E9%83%AD%E6%B2%AB%E8%8B%A5%22.
    11. Book: Bo . Huang (黃波) . zh:真實與幻影:近世文人縱橫談 . Chinese: 秀威資訊科技股份有限公司 . Taiwan . 2008 . 9789862211168. https://books.google.com/books?id=6PFjyvfIabkC&q=%22%E5%9B%9B%E5%A4%A7%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E8%87%89%22+%22%E9%83%AD%E6%B2%AB%E8%8B%A5%22&pg=PT192.
    12. Book: zh:政道與治道 . Chinese: 台灣學生書局 . Mou . Zongsan (牟宗三) . 1980 . 臺灣 . 6 . https://books.google.com/books?id=a-1pAAAAIAAJ&q=%22%E5%9B%9B%E5%A4%A7%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E8%87%89%22+%22%E9%83%AD%E6%B2%AB%E8%8B%A5%22.
    13. Book: zh:红旗跃过汀江 . Guo . Moruo . zh . Chinese: 主席并无心成为诗家或词家,但他的诗词却成了诗词的顶峰。主席更无心成为书家,但他的墨迹却成了书法的顶峰。例如这首《清平乐》的墨迹而论,'黄粱'写作'黄梁',无心中把粱字简化了。龙岩多写一个龙字。'分田分地真忙'下没有句点。这就是随意挥洒的证据。然而这幅字写得多麼生动,多麼潇洒,多麼磊落。每一个字和整个篇幅都充满了豪放不羁的革命气韵。在这里给我们从事文学艺术工作的人,乃至从事任何工作的人,一个深刻的启示∶那就是人的因素第一,政治工作第一,心理工作第一,抓活的思想第一,'四个第一'的原则,极其灵活地、极其具体地呈现下了我们的眼前。.
    14. Chinese Historical Review . 31. 2024 . 1 . A New Discourse on Fengjian: the Redefinition of Fengjian and the Demonization of Federalism . Wynn. Wong. 81–102 . 10.1080/1547402X.2024.2327206 . Taylor & Francis. free .
    15. News: http://cul.sohu.com/20061016/n245819173.shtml . zh:郭沫若晚年的败笔:为自保即席向江青献诗. 新闻午报 . 2006-10-16. 2009-02-01.
    16. Book: zh:--立忱之死 . zh:《传记文学》第六十五卷第六期 . Xie . Bingying (谢冰莹) . 1984-06-15 . zh-hant . 联合报.
    17. Web site: http://topic.xywy.com/wenzhang/20030817/16599.html . zh:郭沫若之女细说父亲往事 . Guo Moruo's daughter recalls details about events in her father's life . zh-hans . 2003-08-17 . 2008-11-13 . 2020-08-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200807192201/http://topic.xywy.com/wenzhang/20030817/16599.html . dead .
    18. Web site: http://lianzai.china.com/books/html/1440/6937/92317.html . zh:长子郭和夫 . Guo Hefuthe eldest son . 2008-11-16 . 2007-09-17 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070917005912/http://lianzai.china.com/books/html/1440/6937/92317.html . dead ., and following chapters, from the book Book: zh:现代名人的后代 . The heirs of the famous people of our times . Wu . Dongping (吴东平) . Hubei People's Press . 2006 . 7-216-04476-2.
    19. Guo Bu, "Zheng zai xiao shi de Shanghai long tang (The Fast Vanishing Shanghai Lanes)". Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House (1996). . (In Chinese and English)
    20. http://www.ustc.edu.cn/en/article/49/42ff6a15/ USTC Newsletter 2001 No.2
    21. Book: Guo . Shiying (郭庶英) . My father Guo Moruo . zh:我的父親郭沫若 . Liaoning People's Press . 2000 . 7-205-05644-6. . The book's cover and table of contents are available on amazon.cn.
    22. Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2004-07/22/content_1622442.htm . zh:《郭沫若的晚年岁月》:郭民英与郭世英 . Guo Moruo's late years: Guo Minying and Guo Shiying . 2004-07-22 . 2008-11-10 . 2009-02-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090225074553/http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2004-07/22/content_1622442.htm . dead . This article is based on the book Book: zh:郭沫若的晚年岁月 . Guo Moruo's Late Years . Feng . Xigang (冯锡刚) . 2004 . 中央文献出版社 . 7-5073-1622-X . zh.
    23. http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/beijing/31041.htm Former Residence of Guo Moruo
    24. Web site: City of Ichikawa . http://www.city.ichikawa.lg.jp/cul01/1541000031.html . ja:郭沫若紀念館 . Guo Moruo's Memorial House . ja.
    25. City of Ichikawa: Leshan City
    26. Book: Gao, Yunxiang . Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century . 2021 . . 9781469664606 . Chapel Hill, NC . 57.
    27. http://badraie.com/guests.htm Badraie
    28. Book: Doleželová-Velingerová . Milena . Milena Doleželová-Velingerová . etal . 1988–1990 . [{{Google books|id=8HCydyCyOdsC|plainurl=y|page=|keywords=|text=}} A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900–1949 ]. 1–4 . Leiden . E. J. Brill .
    29. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/829882203 Nü shen : ju qu shi ge ji (Book, 1921)
    30. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/88935312 Selected poems from The Goddesses (Book, 1984)
    31. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/695470663 Ganla (Book, 1929)
    32. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/701627162 Xiao pin wen yan jiu (Book, 1932)
    33. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/663642252 Chʻü Yüan (book, 1936)
    34. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51524256 Chu Yuan : a play in five acts (Book, 2001)
    35. Kuo Mo-jo, "Under the Moonlight", The China Magazine (formerly China at War), June 1946; reprinted in: Chi-Chen Wang, ed., Stories of China at War, Columbia University Press, 1947; reprinted: Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
    36. Chi-Chen Wang, ed., Stories of China at War, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
    37. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/23317585 Di xia de xiao sheng (Book, 1947)
    38. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41522 Songs of the Red Flag (Book, 1961)
    39. Michelle Loi, "L'œuvre autobiographique d'un écrivain chinois moderne : Guo Moruo (Kouo Mo-jo)", Revue de littérature comparée, 2008/1 (n° 325), pp. 53-65. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
    40. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/192021695 Wo de tong nian (Book, 1947)
    41. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/600208111 Autobiographie mes années d'enfance (Book, 1970)
    42. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34290122 Kindheit : Autobiographie (Book, 1981)
    43. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/28996695 Hei mao yu ta (Book, 1931)
    44. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43072898 Chuangzao shi nian (book, 1932)
    45. "Guo Moruo" entry, Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, 1995 edition.
    46. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4402854 The First Year of Victory (Book, 1950)
    47. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/698948051 Culture and Education in New China (book, 1951)
    48. Jiaguwen heji Jiaguwen Heji (Book, 1978)
    49. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9600586 Appeal and Resolutions of the First Session of the World Peace Council : Berlin ; February 21-26, 1951 ; Kuo Mo-jo's Speech at the World Peace Council (Book, 1951)
    50. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/469273848 The People's New Literature : Four Reports at the First All-China Conference of Writers and Artists (Book, 1951)
    51. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63409716 Cho Wen-chün: A Play in Three Acts (Book, 1974)