After the Qing government began to carry out some superficial reforms, he occasionally had the opportunity to contact some books and periodicals introducing world trends and democratic enlightenment, which broadened his mind and horizons. In primary and secondary schools, Guo Moruo extensively studied China's classical literary works, such as Zhuangzi, Songs of the South, Historical Records and Selected Works, and read the political papers of Liang Qichao and Zhang Taiyan and foreign literary works translated by Lin Shu. Enlightened and influenced by democratic ideas, he was dissatisfied with the dark and corrupt school education, rose up and rebelled, and was expelled from school for three times, which initially showed his rebellious character. Although the Revolution of 1911 gave him a brief excitement, the political chaos soon brought him disappointment and depression, which made him have the desire to leave Sichuan and "strive to fly" to the wide world.
19 13 At the end of the year, Guo Moruo left the country, passed through North Korea, arrived in Japan at the beginning of the following year, and was admitted to the Preparatory School of Tokyo No.1 Higher Education Institution. 19 15 was admitted to Okayama No.6 higher school, and entered the Faculty of Medicine of Kyushu Imperial University in Fukuoka three years after graduation. He chose medicine because he wanted to make it "a practical contribution to the country and society". His life in Japan made him feel oppressed and bullied by militarism. 19 15 years, Japanese imperialism proposed 2 1 unequal treaties to China, and Guo Moruo returned to Shanghai with patriotic indignation of "making peace with anger".
In the first four years of studying in Japan, he read many foreign literary masterpieces and absorbed various nutrients from the works of Tagore, Goethe, Heine and Whitman. Because of his proximity to the works of Tagore and Goethe and the works of Dutch philosopher Spinoza, he was influenced by pantheism. Of course, as a person with modern science education, it is impossible to really believe in the existence of "God". He himself made it clear: "The Pantheon is godless." On the one hand, his pantheism thought was in general harmony with his spirit of despising the authority of idols, expressing himself and publicizing individuality at that time. On the other hand, the realm of "I am integrated with things" provided by pantheism is suitable for poets to gallop through their rich artistic imagination, personify and poeticize everything in the universe and regard it as a living lyric object. This is also the reason why Guo Moruo agrees with the inaccurate statement that "pantheism is the most appropriate poet's worldview".
The October Revolution and the May 4th Movement gave great encouragement to the young Guo Moruo. At that time, various new trends of thought in Europe, which were popular in Japan, also aroused his extensive interest. He started his literary activities with vague ideas of transforming society and full enthusiasm of rejuvenating the nation. He also organized a summer club with some patriotic students studying in Japan to engage in propaganda work against Japanese imperialism. 19 19 In February and March, Guo Moruo wrote a novel with patriotic thoughts, Mourning. Soon, his new poems began to be published in Deng Xue (edited by Zong Baihua), which is the supplement of Shanghai News. The second half of 19 19 to the first half of 1920 is the most prosperous period of Guo Moruo's poetry creation. The publication of Goddess in 192 1 not only established Guo Moruo's outstanding position in the history of modern literature in China, but also opened up a new era and a vast world for China's new poetry.
192 1 Creative Society was established in July, and Guo Moruo is the founder and main member of Creative Society. During the two years of 192 1 and 1922, Guo Moruo returned to China three times. The dark reality of China suddenly shattered his beautiful vision of abandoning the old and establishing the new for the motherland after the May 4th Movement and his desire to achieve social progress through personal efforts. Nature, which has always been praised by poets, has also become a place full of depression and boundless loneliness. "Starry Sky" contains "deep depression", and the poem expressing nature to get rid of depression is an obvious reflection of this kind of thought and emotion.
1923, Guo Moruo returned to China after graduating from Imperial University of Japan. Following the quarterly magazine Creation, he co-organized Creation Weekly and Creation Day with Yu Dafu and Cheng, and often published his works in these publications. This is the heyday of early creative society activities. During this period, Guo Moruo's political thought had great changes and development. Encouraged by the revolutionary situation after the "February 27" movement, he rose from sadness and pain. Although it has not completely got rid of the influence of individualism, it sometimes reveals the idea of rejecting the pressure of tradition with personal conscious power in order to strive for social liberation; However, the poet's sensitivity made him begin to see "the bondage of private property system", not only shouting "Dragon against capitalism", but also pointing out that "the viewpoint of historical materialism" is the only way to solve the world situation ":"After the economic system reform, all Brahma reality, my dignity and the gospel of love can only be used as proletarian morphine and coconut wine. "This kind of understanding is naturally a bit general, but it has also become a valuable ideological factor in creative practice. Since then, the description of nature in Starry Sky has disappeared, while the praise of workers and peasants in Goddess is more enthusiastic. The author claims that he is no longer obsessed with the "cold face" of "contradictory nature", but is willing to "hold" the "outstretched hand" of the working people. As a portrayal of the poet's mind, Qian Mao is a vivid record of this change.
During the period of 1924, the quarterly magazine Creation and the weekly magazine Creation stopped publishing one after another, and several major writers of the Creation Society, such as Yu Dafu and Cheng, separated one after another, and the early activities of the Creation Society came to an end. Guo Moruo suffered setbacks in publishing, his personal life was very embarrassed, and there was a "dilemma" in his thoughts. In April this year, I went to Japan and introduced Marxism by translating the book Social Organization and Social Revolution written by Japanese economist Kawakami. He had a little systematic contact and understanding of Marxism. Although this book has great defects, it did play an important role in the development of Guo Moruo's thought. He himself said: "The translation of this book has formed a transitional period in my life, awakened me from a half-asleep state and led me out of a state of hesitation ..." In the past, Guo Moruo only hated capitalist society blankly, but this book made him "understand the contradictions within capitalism and their inevitable historical changes" and "firmly believe that social life is moving towards * * *". In the same year, Guo Moruo visited Yixing. The evil of warlord melee and the suffering of people's life made him have a deeper understanding of the reality full of class contradictions.
The May 30th Movement of 1925 marked the arrival of the revolutionary climax. At this time, Guo Moruo was inspired and educated by the Great Revolution, and his world outlook, including literature and art, changed greatly. He further criticized individualism. At the end of 1925, he said in the preface of "Literature and Art": "I used to be a person who respected individuality and advocated freedom, but in the last year or two, I had a little contact with that miserable society below the horizon. I feel that in an era when most people have completely lost their freedom and individuality involuntarily, it is inevitable for a small number of people to advocate individuality and freedom. " He also pointed out: "To develop personality, everyone should develop personality in the same way. To live freely, everyone should enjoy the same freedom of life. " In the struggle against nationalists, he published a series of articles with strong revolutionary tendency and distinct class views in the semi-monthly Flood, such as Poor People's Poor Talk, * * Property and * * * Management, and Creating a New Country, which effectively countered their distortion and slander of * * * productism and exposed their claims under the old state system.
Guo Moruo 1926 went to Guangzhou in March, and served as Dean of the College of Literature of Guangdong University. Before and after he left Shanghai, he wrote articles such as Consciousness of Writers and Artists, Revolution and Literature, which showed that his literary thoughts had made new progress. In his article, he used the class viewpoint and actively criticized the aimlessness and non-utility tendency of literature and art according to the relationship between literature and revolution and the social function of literature. At the same time, the article Revolution and Literature also puts forward the actual content of revolutionary literature with the definition of "socialist realistic literature expressing proletarian sympathy". The article "The Awakening of Writers and Artists" also said: "What we need now is literature and art that speaks from the fourth class, which is realistic in form and socialist in content." Although these two articles still have the inevitable shortcomings of simplicity and generality in the early revolutionary literature theory, they represent the awakening and progress of some revolutionary petty-bourgeois writers driven by the great revolutionary wave.
1July, 926, the northern expedition began. Guo Moruo devoted himself to the torrent of war and successively served as Secretary-General, Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Political Department of the Northern Expedition Revolutionary Army. When Chiang Kai-shek rebelled against the revolution and slaughtered the revolutionary masses, he published "Seeing Chiang Kai-shek Today" in Wuhan Central Daily, exposing Chiang Kai-shek's crimes. It is pointed out that Chiang Kai-shek is "a more vicious, vicious and cunning executioner than Wu Peige, Sun, Zhang and Zhang Zongchang". In the same year, he participated in the "August 1st" Nanchang Uprising, and the insurgents joined the China Producers' Party on the way south. After the defeat of the Guangdong Rebel Army, Guo Moruo returned to Shanghai via Hong Kong and wrote a collection of poems, the Restoration, in which Wild Music and Drum of Tatar answered Chiang Kai-shek's bloody massacre. Guo Moruo was an active participant and supporter when the proletarian revolutionary literature movement in Shanghai rose.
After 1928, Guo Moruo spent 10 years in exile in Japan. During this period, he used the viewpoint of historical materialism to study China's ancient philology and ancient social history, demonstrated the existence of slave society in China, strongly refuted the fallacy that "historical materialism is not suitable for China's national conditions" and made outstanding achievements in academic research. He also actively supported the activities of the "Left Alliance" in Tokyo. In addition, I wrote an autobiography, my childhood, anyway, before and after, ten years of creation, the road to the Northern Expedition. For this "overseas decade", Zhou Enlai once pointed out that it was a decade in which Guo Moruo "saved his energy, buried himself in research and supplemented himself, that is, made new contributions to the revolution and prepared new forces".
When War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out, Guo Moruo "abandoned his wife and children" and returned to the motherland after a long absence of 10. Under the direct leadership of Zhou Enlai, he was engaged in the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement, one of the main leaders of the National Anti-Japanese Association in the literary and art circles, and served as the director of the Third Hall of the Political Department of the Central Military Commission in the anti-Japanese United front, responsible for the cultural propaganda work related to the Anti-Japanese War. In literary and artistic creation, he has written poems such as The Warring States Policy and Ji Ji, as well as many historical dramas such as Qu Yuan and Khufu. After War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's victory, Guo Moruo persisted in the struggle against civil war and for democracy, bravely stood in the forefront of the movement and made new achievements in his creation.
After the founding of New China, Guo Moruo not only continued his tireless literary activities, but also shouldered heavy party and state affairs for a long time, engaged in scientific, cultural and educational leadership, and made new contributions to the motherland, the people and the socialist cause.
Guo Moruo died in June 1978. He is not only an outstanding poet, writer and dramatist in modern China, but also a Marxist historian and archaeologist. He is another glorious banner on the cultural front of China after Lu Xun.