Xu Zhimo, a famous modern Chinese poet. Born on January 15, 1897 in Xiashi Town, Haining County, Zhejiang Province into a wealthy businessman family. On November 19, 1931, he was flying from Nanjing to Peiping and died in a plane crash. His original name was Zhang (Shixu), his courtesy name was (Qi+灬)sen, and his pen names were Shizhe, Nanhu, etc. He received enlightenment education at the age of five. He received excessive pampering from his grandmother and mother and a wealthy living environment since he was a child. He later developed indulgence, His free and elegant character and bourgeois populist ideas have a certain influence.
He graduated from Fuzhong School in Hangzhou in 1915 and was admitted to Shanghai Baptist College in the same year. He entered Tianjin Beiyang University in 1916, and the following year he merged with the school to study at Peking University. In the summer of 1918, he went to the United States to study, first studying in the History Department of Clark University, and then studying for a master's degree in the Department of Economics of Columbia University. During this period, he accepted the ideas of bourgeois democracy and humanitarianism. In the autumn of 1920, he went to England and studied at the School of Economics and Political Science of the University of London, and later transferred to the University of Cambridge.
He began writing poetry in 1921. He was deeply influenced by the British aristocratic society and the ideas of aestheticism and art supremacy, and became a poet who imitated the British aesthetic poets. His early works pursued the liberation of bourgeois personality and explored the philosophy of life. In 1922, he divorced his wife Zhang Youyi, who was studying in Germany. In October of the same year, he returned to China and worked at the Songpo Library in Beijing. He successively served as a professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Minmin University. In 1923, he established the Crescent Society with Hu Shi and others. In 1924, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore visited China and served as a translator. Later, he traveled to Europe with Tagore. After returning to China, he edited the supplement of Beijing's "Morning News". During this period, he wrote and published many poems and essays, which were quite influential. In 1925, he published his first collection of poems, "Zhimo's Poems", at his own expense. The works expressed his concern and sympathy for the fate of ordinary people, his desire and praise for ideals, love, and freedom, and showed softness and elegance in art. The prose "Sunrise on Mount Tai" and "Mansfield" are elegant and novel in style. He went to the Soviet Union in 1925. After returning home, he questioned and criticized the Russian October Revolution. On April 1, 1926, "Morning News. Poetry" was founded and he served as editor-in-chief. The works published at this time were more mature in art, but they also contained negative and decadent emotions after the ideal life was shattered. In the same year, he married Lu Xiaoman, and the following year he went south and taught successively at Shanghai Guanghua University, Daxia University, and Nanjing Central University. In the spring of the same year, he organized the Crescent Bookstore with Hu Shi and others, and founded the monthly magazine "Crescent" with Hu Shi, Liang Shiqiu, and others, and served as president. Edited. Use "New Moon" and Lu Xun to engage in pen battles to criticize the proletarian revolutionary literary movement. In 1928, he went to Cambridge again and wrote the popular poem "Farewell Cambridge Again". This poem has beautiful artistic conception, freshness and refinedness, harmonious syllables, and is widely praised by people.
In his short literary career of ten years, Xu Zhimo created a large number of poems and prose. His works are sincere, elegant, free and original, and he is an important writer since the May Fourth Movement.