Ye Shengtao
Ye Shengtao, formerly known as Ye Shaojun, also known as Bingchen and Shengtao, was born on October 28, 1894 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He is a modern writer, educator, literary publisher and social activist. , known as "an excellent language artist".
In 1907, he was admitted to Caoqiao Middle School. In 1916, he entered the Shang Gong School attached to the Shanghai Commercial Press to teach, and published the first fairy tale "Scarecrow". In 1918, he published his first vernacular novel "Spring Banquet Tales". In 1923, he published the novel "Ni Huanzhi".
After 1949, he successively served as deputy minister of education, president and editor-in-chief of the People's Education Press, member of the All-China Joint Committee of Literary and Art Circles, consultant to the Chinese Writers Association, director of the Central Research Institute of Literature and History, and Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of the People's Republic of China, member of the Standing Committee of the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth National People's Congress, and Chairman of the Central Committee for the Advancement of Democracy. In 1983, he was elected Vice Chairman of the Sixth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He is a representative of the first to fourth National People's Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the fifth National People's Congress, a member of the first National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and a member of the Standing Committee of the fifth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Died in Beijing on February 16, 1988, at the age of 94.
Literary Contribution
Ye Shengtao's first academic paper on children's literature was titled "The Concept of Children", which criticized the bad influences on Chinese children.
In fact, Ye Shengtao was the first author to write fairy tales in the 1920s. His work "The Scarecrow" was published in 1923. This children's book is extremely popular among many teenagers. Another work, "Stone Statues of Ancient Heroes," tells the story of a stone carved into the image of a hero. The moral behind this easy-to-read story is to mock the arrogance of experts and the insensitivity of people.
Ye Shengtao passionately advocates standardizing modern Chinese including standardized grammar, rhetoric, vocabulary, punctuation, simplified characters and the elimination of variant Chinese characters. He also compiled and standardized the Chinese characters for publications and prescribed the Chinese Pinyin scheme. His efforts improved the quality and organization of editorial work.
The most important thing is that Ye Shengtao advocated the use of vernacular Chinese in the publishing field. Most of his magazines and newspapers use vernacular, which greatly facilitates the reading of reporters and readers. All these contributions have promoted the development of journalism in China.
"Ye Shengtao's representative work: Scarecrow" is the first collection of fairy tales written for children in New China. The author Ye Shengtao is also a pioneer in the creation of modern Chinese fairy tales. Mao Dun said of Ye Shengtao: If you look for something surprising in his works, there may not be anything surprising; however, even if there is nothing surprising at the beginning, there is his power to purify and sublimate people's character.
Introduction to the collection of fairy tales: There was an old woman who had a scarecrow in her field, and the scarecrow guarded the rice field for her. However, the moths laid seeds on the leaves. The old woman did not see the leaves curling up. The fleshworms ate up all the rice. The scarecrow warned the old lady, but the old lady didn't know. The Scarecrow saw that the fisherwoman and the crucian carp were pitiful, and he could not help them, so he collapsed sadly.
The fairy tale "Scarecrow" truly describes the precarious human conditions in China's rural areas in the 1920s through the seeing and thinking of a sympathetic but powerless scarecrow.