Crescent School and Its Artistic Pursuit In the mid-1920s, several young intellectuals studying in Europe and America organized a loose salon. They often eat and chat together and talk about the development of China's new literature. Later, they founded a bookstore together and published a series of books, gradually forming a roughly consistent view on poetry creation and poetry aesthetics. They created a large number of excellent poems and put forward a systematic aesthetic view of new poetry. People call them "Crescent School". People who take part in the activities of the Crescent School don't admit that they have a "school". They said that each of them has his own life ideal and artistic hobby. Some of them believe in romanticism, some believe in aestheticism and some believe in Babbitt's new humanism. Their professional interests are also different. They claim that by putting the hat of "Pai" on their heads, they regard them as the same gang members as the "Green Red Gang" in the lower class. They say that lions and tigers have always been alone, and only wolves and dogs like to live in groups. In fact, people call them "schools", not their "party affiliation", but their consistency in poetic art and aesthetic thought. The activities of the crescent school are mainly from 1926 to 1933. It started with Morning Post Poetry Magazine (1April 926) and ended with Crescent Magazine (1June 933), which is the longest-lived poetry school in the history of China's new poetry in the 20th century. The emergence of the Crescent School can be summarized by "two literati circles and one supplement", which refers to Wen Yiduo's literary circle and Hu Shi's and Xu Zhimo's literary circles, and the supplement refers to morning newspaper poems. 1922 10 when Xu zhimo returned from studying in Beijing, he initiated and organized a dinner party attended by people from Beijing's upper class, writers, university professors, and important figures in politics, industry and finance. Among them are Hu Shi, Chen Yuan, Yu Shangyuan, Ding Xilin, Lin, and Ling Shuhua. Talking about the origin of the new moon in The Beginning of Drama, Xu Zhimo said, "It was originally a dinner party, from which the new moon meeting was born, and from which the No.7 meeting was born." Xu Zhimo initiated a dinner party, the purpose is not simply to invite everyone to have tea and chat together, he has greater ambitions. He hoped that Qi Xin would work together to "open up a new world" for China's new poetry and even the whole new culture and do something practical. However, the actual situation made Xu Zhimo disappointed. A few years later, he was no longer keen on the activities of the crescent society. It was at this time that Wen Yiduo found him and rekindled his hope of "opening up a new world". Wen Yiduo studied in America in his early years and returned to China in the summer of 1925. He was introduced by Xu Zhimo as the provost of Beijing National Art Institute. Because of Xu Zhimo, he also participated in the activities of the crescent society. But soon "retired". So Wen Yiduo often sits at home and talks about poetry with several young poets. Among them are Zhu Xiang, Rao Mengkan, Sun Dayu, Liu, Yu Gengyu, Jane, Zhu Dadeng, etc. Xu Zhimo is also an activist among them. 1in the spring of 926, Liu Xiang asked why he didn't set up a journal to publish their poems and poetic thoughts. At that time, Xu Zhimo was editing the Morning Post Supplement, and they agreed to borrow the page of the Morning Post Supplement. Xu Zhimo has always wanted to show his talents in the creation of new poems. They are both friends. They hit it off, and the poem came out. When talking about the publication of The Book of Songs, Mr. Randy said: "The Book of Songs is entrusted with the pursuit of two aspiring poets who want to show their edge and lead the trend. It is an evolution of Tsinghua Literature Society and Crescent Society, and a combination of European and American students from Peking University and Tsinghua. This combination based on European and American ideology and literary background has a great influence on the future direction of the Crescent School. " This description is very instructive for us to understand the crescent school and its artistic evolution. The poetry edition only ran 1 1 and ended in June 1926. Later, they ran a drama magazine, ran 15, and finally published it. Most authors have been separated. With the southward migration of China Cultural Center, writers, poets and some scholars gathered in Shanghai and Nanjing, which provided conditions for the "revival" of the Crescent School. /kloc-0 In the spring of 927, Shanghai intellectuals such as Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo and Shao organized the Crescent Society, with Hu Shi as its president. Crescent Bookstore founded Crescent Monthly, followed by Poetry Quarterly. The publication of "New Moon" was closed in June, 1932, which means that the activities of the New Moon are over. Some poets either turned to or continued to advocate the new moon to explore the possibility of the development of new poetry in many ways, but as a cultural activity group, it no longer exists. Crescent School is not a pure school of poetry, but it is more accurate to call it "cultural school". But poetry plays an important role in this cultural school. Therefore, it is also accurate to summarize the poetic characteristics and aesthetic pursuit of members of this cultural group with the "Crescent Poetry School". 1928 March 10, the new moon was officially launched. The inaugural issue published the article "Attitude of the New Moon" written by Xu Zhimo, which obviously played the banner of "health and dignity". "We have a mission to create a great future for our glorious past; It is also the responsibility to end this dark present and move towards a bright future. We must first remind this mission and responsibility. We have talked about the dignity and health of life before, but we have never seen a simpler symbol of faith. We should give full play to these two principles-dignity and health. Dignity, its voice can call back a life wandering on the wrong road. Health, its power can eliminate all germs that erode thoughts and life. " The literary activities of the Crescent School are not limited to poetry, but also include drama, novel, prose, literary theory and criticism. As a school of poetry, its artistic pursuit is mainly reflected in the following aspects. First, strong individualism. Most of the poets of Crescent Poetry School are deeply influenced by China's traditional culture and impacted by various literary and artistic trends in Europe and America. As a whole, they present a "complicated" situation. But one thing is the same, that is, they all emphasize the power of "human nature", advocate individualism, regard human nature as the core of art, and second, emphasize the "pure" taste of literature and art. Since entering the literary world, the Crescent Poetry School has taken it as its own responsibility to defend the "health and dignity" and "pure" taste of literature and art, and they oppose taking literature and art as a tool or means. Wen Yiduo even put forward the slogan of "art for art's sake", while Xu Zhimo and Liang Shiqiu advocated "art for life", but they also opposed taking literature and art as a tool of realistic struggle. Chen Xinyue, a poet, published Selected Poems of Crescent Moon on 193 1. In the preface to Selected Poems of the New Moon, Chen emphasized that the new moon poets wrote poems in the spirit of "writing poems seriously with a solemn attitude (and writing poems only for poetry)" and said: "We like purity and purity. This poetic proposition of the Crescent School attracted a lot of controversy at that time, and even today, it is "controversial". Thirdly, it is emphasized that the form of poetry is the "meter" of poetry, which is the greatest contribution left by crescent poets to the history of new poetry. As early as A.D. 1930, literary historians Chen Zizhan, Zhao and Zhu Ziqing all thought that the Crescent Poetry School was a metrical poetry school or a western poetry school. 1In May, 926, Wen Yiduo published his famous poem Metric of Poetry, and put forward his thought of "three beauties" in establishing new metrical poems, namely, the beauty of music, painting and architecture. They believe that poetry should have a certain format, that poets should consciously "dance in chains" and that poetry should be written "like poetry", instead of excessively indulging their emotions and advocating rationality and moderation. The crescent school's emphasis on the new poetry meter is a kind of "reaction" to the poetry and prose culture since the May 4th Movement, which has made great contributions to the maturity of modern poetry in China. The Selected Poems of Crescent School selected more important poems of the main poets of Crescent School, which can basically reflect the poetic thoughts and artistic interests of Crescent School. The crescent school has a far-reaching influence on the development of the whole new poetry. Some poets, such as Bian, inherited the "creed" of "new poetry rhythm" in their later poems. In order to help readers better understand the influence of Crescent School on the whole development of new poetry, the editor specially selected Bian's later poems "Broken Chapters" and "Dream of Ancient Towns" to show readers that this situation is more or less reflected in many poets of Crescent School, including some poets such as He Qifang, Sun Dayu, etc., or they have always adhered to the "Crescent Road" or changed their poetic style. As a whole, the influence of the new moon is obvious. I won't go into details here. What the editor just wants to say is that when reading Crescent Poetry, we should not only regard it as a relatively closed and complete school of poetry, but also openly see its influence on a poet's life creation and even the whole history of new poetry.