On Free Talk Of The Shanghai News With Zhou Shoujuan As Chief Editor

Free Talk of the Shanghai News was a comprehensive supplement with a long history. The period from April 1^st.1920 to November 30^th,1932 marked an important phase in its development when Zhou Shoujuan worked as its chief editor.In return,editing Free Talk was seen as a proud and major achivement in Zhou's literary carrer,who was the writer, translator and editor at the same.Free Talk fully demonstrated the editing thought and literary ideal of Zhou who highly values emotion and ethical beauty.Meanwhile,writers for Free Talk mainly came from the Saturday School,one of whose major representatives was Zhou.While selecting articles,Zhou based his choice on readers" demand rather than the form of an article.An overview of the development of Free Talk in this period shows that the supplement, as one part of a major business newspaper,had always followed the principle of putting readers first and insisted on the combination of literature and interest although Zhou tried many times to reform it.It was diversified in content,including introduction of personal experience,demonstration of pursuit of fashion,introduction and discussion of new type of family together with a concern for the loss of traditional Chinese ethics.It also includes concern for domestical political affairs,but with an approach deviating from main stream ideology.Such a literary choice by Free Talk made it very popular with large numbers of readers in 1920s and exerted a great effect.This,however,seriously hindered its development in 1930s.In the face of foreign aggression and the changes in litetature as a consequence, Zhou was at a loss and finally replaced by Li Liewen.Free Talk with Zhou Shoujuan as chief editor displayed the social life in 1920s and was important documents for studying the metropolitan life in Shanghai during that period.