Speaking of Hu Shi and Xu Zhimo, I believe anyone who knows a little about China's modern history will know these two famous figures. Hu Shi is a master with profound knowledge and familiarity with China and the West. He has dabbled in a wide range in his life and made great achievements in many aspects. He is also a strong advocate of vernacular Chinese and one of the leaders of the New Culture Movement. On the other hand, Xu Zhimo is a brilliant romantic poet. He is also one of the representative poets of "Crescent School", an important poetry school in modern history of China. In his short life, he wrote many beautiful and poetic poems. Let's take a look at Hu Shi's evaluation of Xu Zhimo.
Hu Shi's evaluation of Xu Zhimo's life is very simple. He said that Xu Zhimo's outlook on life is a "simple belief" with three words, namely, love, freedom and beauty. What he pursues all his life is to combine these three ideals in his life, which is what Hu Shi called "pure faith". Hu Shi also said that throughout the history of Xu Zhimo's life, it was the process of his pursuit of these three ideals.
Hu Shi's evaluation of Xu Zhimo is simple, but accurate. Xu Zhimo lived for three words all his life. Xu Zhimo loved two women in his life, namely Lin and Lu Xiaoman, so he divorced his wife Zhang Youyi without hesitation, because he thought there was no love between them, so it was better to take this opportunity to end this marriage as soon as possible. During his contacts with Lin and Lu Xiaoman, he wrote many poems related to love, all of which revealed Xu Zhimo's yearning for love, freedom and beauty.
Hu Shi's evaluation of Xu Zhimo is still in line with the impression left by Xu Zhimo to the world, without any flattering or derogatory words, which reflects Hu Shi's consistent style of doing things.
Hu Shi, as the first great scholar in China's modern history, clearly put forward his opposition to stereotyped feudal writing and vigorously advocated and popularized vernacular Chinese, which played a key role in emancipating people's minds and promoting the development of vernacular Chinese at that time. He made a lot of efforts to realize the ideal of spreading the vernacular in China. For example, he wrote "Trial Collection", the first collection of vernacular poems in the history of China, and almost all vernacular poems got rid of the shackles of classical poems. For example, Hu Shi's poem Butterfly. The content of this poem is actually very simple. A poem has only four lines and forty words. The main content is about the loneliness and confusion of a yellow butterfly, which expresses his loneliness and helplessness in a metaphorical way. This poem was written on August 23rd of 19 16, and was first published in New Youth magazine founded by Chen Duxiu. If we appreciate this poem from an artistic point of view, we can find that it is very immature, unremarkable and poetic. And if a poem has no poetry, can't bring pleasure to people, can't arouse the reader's inner * * *, then this is a failed poem.
But from another perspective, this song has great practical and historical significance. Because its appearance is an unprecedented attempt, it is trying to get rid of the norms and constraints of China's classical poetry, create its own style, and lay a solid foundation for the development of modern poetry.
Based on the above two points, we should make a fair evaluation of Hu Shi's Butterfly: it is an epoch-making poem. Although its artistic level is not high, it still occupies an important position in the modern history of China and has pioneering historical significance.
What is the relationship between Hu Shi and Zhou?
Zhou is a famous contemporary scholar of A Dream of Red Mansions. He has done a lot of research on classical literature and calligraphy. So, how did Zhou and Hu Shi get to know each other and accept such a Dream of Red Mansions? Next, let's take a look.
In fact, Zhou had made great achievements in poetry and drama before he devoted himself to the study of A Dream of Red Mansions. The connection between Zhou and A Dream of Red Mansions originated from her mother's interpretation of A Dream of Red Mansions when she was young, but it was Hu Shi who really devoted Zhou to A Dream of Red Mansions.
Zhou, my brother, has also been devoted to the study of redology. Later, he found an article about A Dream of Red Mansions written by Hu Shi, and asked Zhou to look it up. Zhou searched the whole library and found this poem and wrote an article about it. When Hu Shi saw Zhou's article, he immediately sent a letter to Zhou. From then on, Hu Shi and Zhou began to discuss Redology by correspondence, and Zhou and Hu Shi thus formed an indissoluble bond.
Later, Zhou Wei's new book made a special trip to visit Hu Shi, and Hu Shi specially lent his orphan book to Zhou. Therefore, Zhou often praised Hu Shi's generosity and approachability, lamented Hu Shi's love for himself, and his words often contained gratitude.
There are seven letters between Hu Shi and Zhou. All the letters were made public except one that was accidentally lost. The discussion between them because of A Dream of Red Mansions has also become a beautiful talk in the history of redology.
Forty-three years after Hu Shi's death, Zhou published a book about him and Hu Shi, describing their discussion on A Dream of Red Mansions and pointing out Hu Shi's outstanding contribution to A Dream of Red Mansions.