Ye Shengtao Explained

Pic:Ye Shengtao Portrait.jpg
S:叶圣陶
T:葉聖陶
P:Yè Shèngtáo
W:Yeh Sheng-t'ao

Ye Shengtao (28 October 1894 – 16 February 1988) was a Chinese writer, journalist, educator, publisher and politician. He was a founder of the Association for Literary Studies (Chinese: 文學研究會), the first literature association during the May Fourth Movement in China. He served as the Vice-Minister of Culture of the People's Republic of China.

Throughout his life, he was dedicated to publishing and language education. He subscribed to the philosophy that "Literature is for Life" (Chinese: 文學為人生).

Educational and journalistic ideologies

Literature is for life (文學為人生)

Ye was passionate in reflecting the real life in his works:

Contribution to literature

Ye discovered that many people in the New China were selfish, apathetic, hypocritic and conservative. People gave up their values in exchange for a stable life. Ye's works shared a sense of irony. He expressed his discontent in a bid to arouse the awareness of the public towards these social weaknesses. Ye was not only writing stories, but also reporting the fallacies in society. His writings were not only for leisure but feeding the rest by knowing and reflecting the reality, "...the basic requirement for writing fiction is a pair of penetrating and observant eyes and my eyes are not penetrating enough...Of course, it is not necessary to train one's eyes just for the sake of writing but trained eyes do, in reality, nourish life." (Ye Shengtao, 'Guoqu Suitan', op. cit., p. 46.)

Children's literature: A mind training for the young

Ye's first academic essay was about children literature, called Children's Concept (Chinese: 兒童之觀念), criticizing how feudalism affected children's lives in China.

In fact, Ye was the first writer who created fairy tales in the 1920s. His writing The Scarecrow (Dào cǎo rén 《稻草人》) was published in 1923. This children's reading was very popular among numerous youngsters. Another 'fairy tale was "A Stone Figure of an Ancient Hero". (Gǔdāi yīngxióng de shíxiàng 《古代英雄的石像》) This story was about a stone which had been sculpted into a hero statue. The message behind this easy-to-read story was to ridicule the authorities who were arrogant and insensitive to his people.

Works

Literature

Journalism

Ye Shengtao Memorial Hall

Ye Shengtao Memorial Hall is located at the former site of The 5th High School where Ye Shengtao taught from 1917 to 1922. It is located beside the Baosheng Temple in Luzhi township, Wuzhong district of Suzhou city.

Further reading

Portrait

External links

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