Life Is Elsewhere

This thesis focuses on Mr. Gu Cheng's escaping from "the present" world and life and pursuing the life in "other place", considers his life as a constant journey of "seeking home with nostalgic impulse", and tries to approach the poet by concluding the poet's journey of life and poems from his trip of "leaving" and "returning".This thesis is divided into three parts, trying to analyze from three aspects: escaping/leaving, returning home/coming back, and death/the end. Together with the commenting and study of Gu Cheng's poems, the thesis tries to sort out Gu Cheng's journey of life and poems from a more macro scope.Chapter one focuses on the tense relationship between Mr. Gu Cheng and the world. Through analysis of some ways of Gu's "escaping", this chapter discusses the effect of "escaping" on the forming of Gu Cheng's way of poem-writing from the human-geographical point of view. When Gu Cheng confronted to the world he lived, he chose to flee from it, leaving the life there. There are three important "escaping" journey in his life: being exiled to the countryside, returning to the city and migrated to the foreign country. It's because these three important escaping that formed Gu Cheng writing style of poems. In this part, the reasons and procedure of Gu Cheng's poems are discussed.Chapter two, starting with the spiritual pursuit in Gu Cheng's poetry, looks back the "returning" process of his life and poetry. Gu Cheng always pursued a life in "other place", which is his spiritual hometown. This hometown he looked for and wanted to return all through his life is the "origin" which is close to his real life. This hometown, like a "utopia", has its own order which is a perfect live's logic in Gu's heart. In order to reach this home, the poet experienced hardship, embarking his "Noah's Ark" and sailing with his dream. Accompanied by hope and despair, Gu navigated in the boundless ocean. This part tries to expatiate the poet's return voyage.Chapter three introduces the unavoidable "death" about Gu's study. Death is the end of Gu's process of life and poetry, and is the target of the first two parts. Death is Gu Cheng's inescapable destiny and also Gu's choice on his own initiative because of the "poets' duty". Death is a present which has resolved many paradoxes and contradictions in his life, and let "escaping" becomes thoroughness, the "returning" foreverness. This makes his death and perusuit became meaningful.Through exposition of the three parts above, Gu Cheng, as a combination of leaving and returning sense, his journey of life and poetry creation became clear. Although the macro perspective might overlooks the rich experience and subtle feelings in Gu Cheng's poems, I'm still willing to touch and explore his unique artistic life in the flow of Gu Cheng's life.