The Research On Xu Zhimo

As an important author in modern Chinese literature, Xu Zhimo plays a vital role in the history of Chinese new poetry. However, due to the influence of different ideology, researches on the author are inadequate and even deficient, featured either by a complete negation or a fully positive acceptance of the author himself and his works. The gist of the dissertation lies in a rational recognition of the author.Based on humanism, the paper begins with the recollection of Xu’s mental world.During his academic career in the United States, especially in the UK, the author was thereby equipped with a humanistic idealism, as a result of an immersion in the humane atmosphere of Cambridge University, a baptism of the Cambridge, and a deep influence by the Western humanistic tradition. Taking love as the theme of his writing,Xu holds rationality aloft and values education. Besides, he sticks to the principles of health and dignity, freedom and tolerance, in the meantime, he longs for the nature and respects individuality.On the basis of the humanistic tradition, Xu Zhimo insists on his genre of "feel the love and beauty",and attaches to love and beauty. With a "positive" mentality and an expectation for British-like political system, he never fails to disclose the dark social reality in old China and fight against the secular society. He puts a keen interest in such fluid aesthetic images as "flying","clouds" and "water". They constitute the mental world of Xu Zhimo’s conscience and resistance and construct his creation mentality interwoven by sorrow and happiness.Xu Zhimo’s literary perspective displays romanticism and aestheticism. Taking the awakening of life as the premise, his life poetics perspective views the world with life consciousness and achieves life as the goal, demonstrating persistent thoughts and exploration on life. This view of life, from the relationship between literature and life,elevating to a deeper relationship between art and life, reflects the surprise and joy of life, pursuit and ideals of life as well as the experience and display of life. Paying attention to the inseparable analysis of the aesthetic realm and impression, focusing on the perfect integration of the form and the essence, the form and the spirit of the literary works, concerning life as a whole, his overall perspective of the beauty entitles his works with a concentration of vivid and dynamic aestheticism. His poetic view of life pursues life, love, freedom and beauty as an ideal, succeeds in a transcendence of the art over life and endows human beings with a poetic life style,with a concern of life through the art, a revelation of the essence of life and a display of the meaning of life. The artistic view embodies the author’s understanding that art comes from life and also reflects his ideation of employing arts and literature to reconstruct life and achieve idealism.Xu Zhimo is an important essayist in the new Chinese history. His essays are rich in theme and multifarious in genre, with a perfect merging with politics,autobiography, mourning, review, and travel notes. These proses reflect his initiative and original contribution (the style of Wild Horse) to Chinese modern prose. This spectacular style is characterized by a open mind, a brisk description, an elegant flexibility and a casual calmness, always full of elegance and freedom.The importance of Xu Zhimo in the history of new poetry ranks second only to Guo Moruo. Xu’s poetry could be summarized as "unrelated to stop"(无关阑),a natural and free state of creation. In this state, the affect of his poetry resembles something natural and free of any restraint,with an integration of melancholy and passion. The style of his poetry also diversifies, typified with romanticism and accompanied occasionally with realism and modernism.Many facets of research on Xu Zhimo need further development and expansion,namely, his novel, play and translation. The paper is flawed with a limited perspective only from the author’s humanistic idealism, his psychology of creation, his view on literature and art as well as prose and poetry. Nevertheless, compared with abundant fragmental pieces of studies, the paper displays a comparatively grand perspective and an overall comprehension. The thorough and in-depth study on the author and his poetry will definitely help to improve and motivate the future studies.