Guo Moruo

Guo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born in November in Shawan, a small town of around 180 families at that time.[2] Guo's father's ancestors were Hakkas from Ninghua County in Tingzhou fu, near the western border of Fujian. They moved to Sichuan after 1650s, after Sichuan lost much of its population to the rebels/bandits of Zhang Xianzhong (ca. 1605–1647). According to Guo's family legend, the only belongings that Guo's ancestors brought to Sichuan were things they could carry on their backs. Guo's great-grandfather, Guo Xianlin, was the first in the family to achieve a degree of prosperity. Guo Xianlin's sons established the Guo clan as the heads of the local river shipping business, and later became the few people with the most influence in that entire region of Sichuan. Since then the members of Guo clan were able to send their children to school for education.[2]

Guo's father, whose name may possibly have been Guo Mingxing (1854–1939), had to drop out of school at the age of 13 and then spent six months as an apprentice at a salt well. Thereafter he entered his father, a shrewd and smart man who achieved some local renown as a Chinese medical doctor's business, traded successfully in oils, opium, liquor, and grain and operated a money changing business. His business's success has brought his family a great fortune.[2]

Guo's mother, in contrast, came from a scholar-official background. She was a daughter of Du Zhouzhang, a holder of the coveted jinshi degree. Whilst serving as an acting magistrate in Huangping prefecture (黄平州), now part of Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, in eastern Guizhou, Du died in 1858 while fighting Miao rebels, when his daughter (the future mother of Guo Moruo) was less than a year old. She married into the Guo family in 1872, when she was fourteen.[2]

Guo was the eighth child of his mother. Three of his siblings died before he was born, but more children were born later, so by the time he went to school, he had seven siblings.[2]

Guo also had the childhood name Guo Wenbao ('Cultivated Leopard'), given due to a dream his mother had on the night he was conceived.[2]

A few years before Guo was born, his parents retained a private tutor, Shen Huanzhang, to provide education for their children, in the hope of them later passing civil service examinations. A precocious child, Guo started studying at this "family school" in the spring of 1897, at the early age of four and half. Initially, his studies were based on Chinese classics, but after the government education reformed in 1901, mathematics and other modern subjects started to be introduced.[2]

In fall 1903 a number of public schools were established in Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, the Guo children started going there to study. Guo's oldest brother, Guo Kaiwen (1877–1936), entered one of the public schools, Dongwen Xuetang, a secondary school preparing students for more education in Japan; the second oldest brother, Guo Kaizou, joined Wubei Xuetang, a military school. Guo Kaiwen soon became instrumental in encouraging his brother and sisters in reading modern books and magazines and that allowed them to learn about the world outside.[2]

Guo Kaiwen continued to be a role model for his younger brothers and in February 1905 he left for Japan, to study law and administration at Tokyo Imperial University on a provincial government's scholarship.[2]

After passing competitive examinations, in early 1906 Guo Moruo started attending the new upper-level primary school (高等小學; gāoděng xiǎoxué) in Jiading. It was a boarding school located in a former Buddhist temple and he lived on premises. He went on to a middle school in 1907, acquiring by this time the reputation of an academically gifted student but also a troublemaker. His peers respected him and often elected him as a delegate to represent their interests against the school administration. Often spearheading student-faculty conflicts, he was expelled and reinstated a few times, and finally expelled permanently in October 1909.[2]

Guo was glad to be expelled, as he now had a reason to go to the provincial capital Chengdu to continue his education there.[2]

In October 1911, Guo decided go back to countryside and called on people to attend The Revolution of 1911. He was later surprised by his mother announcing that a marriage was arranged for him. He went along with his family's wishes, marrying his appointed bride, Zhang Jinghua, sight-unseen in Shawan in March 1912. Immediately, he regretted this marriage, and five days after the marriage, he left his ancestral home and returned to Chengdu, leaving his wife behind. He never formally divorced her, but apparently never lived with her either.[2]

Following his elder brothers, Guo left China in December 1913, arriving Japan in early January 1914. After a year of preparatory study in Tokyo, he entered the Sixth Higher School in Okayama.[2] While visiting a friend of his hospitalized in Saint Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, in the summer of 1916, Guo fell in love with Sato Tomiko, a Japanese woman from a Christian family, who was working at the hospital as a student nurse. Sato was attracted by Guo's romantic personality and the bravery of speaking his love openly. Sato believed Guo was different from the Japanese men who are not used to express their feelings. The straight forwardness and romantic letters Guo Moruo sent Sato completely took Sato's heart. Even though the marriage was not approved by Sato's parents, Sato soon became his common-law wife. They stayed together for 20 years, until the outbreak of the war, and had five children together.[3]

After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushu Imperial University in Fukuoka.[2] He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely the works of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Bengali poet Tagore. In 1919 May Fourth Movement started and Guo devoted himself into the New Culture Movement and published multiple new works such as "O, Earch, My mother" and "Nirvana of the Phoenix". Along with numerous translations, he published his first anthology of poems, entitled The Goddesses (女神; nǚshén) (1921). Guo was starting to become noticed by the Chinese poetry circle because of his westernized style of poems. As for the poetry expression, the anthology jumped out of the old Chinese poetry frameworks and became a new style which represents freedom and new ideas just like the transition of China from tradition to modernity. The creation of the anthology marks the beginning of a new era in the modern Chinese literature works.[4] The transformation from tradition Chinese literature style to a more imaginative while romantic style symbolizes the first experiment of the combination of western literary and romanticism, one great example would be The Goddesses.[5] Later Guo Moruo co-founded the Ch'uang-tsao she ("Creation Society") with Yu Dafu and other Chinese intellectuals in Shanghai 1921,which promoted modern and vernacular literature.[6] One of the main goals of Guo's creation of Ch'uang-tsao she was to acquire the freedom or art, was to encourage the younger generation of artists to think out of the box and be more imaginative in art and literature creation.[7]

In 1924, Guo went to Japan again and made multiple translations to literatures such as 《社会组织与社会革命》written by 河上肇 and 《新时代》written by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. This is when Guo started to learn and understand Maxism and began to set it as his personal value. In the same year, Guo finished writing the historical play 《王昭君》. In early March 1926, Guo got to know some of the early stage Chinese Communist Leaders and later in 1927 Guo joined the Communist Party of China. He was involved in the Communist Nanchang Uprising and fled to Japan after being pursued by Jiang Jieshi's Chinese Nationalist Party. He stayed there for 10 years studying Chinese ancient history. In the year of 1931 he published his work on inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze vessels, Corpus of Inscriptions on Bronzes from the Two Zhou Dynasties (两周金文辭大系考釋).[8] In this work, he attempted to demonstrate, according to the Communist doctrine, the "slave society" nature of ancient China. His theory on the "slave society of China" remains highly controversial, although it was praised by Mao Zedong and the party. In the same year, Guo finished translating Leo Tolstoy's famous work War and Peace.

In the summer of 1937, shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-imperial Japanese resistance. Guo's main contributions to the war was to gather literature writers and promoted Chinese Communist Party. He created 《救亡日报》for that purpose and achieved some success. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities,[3] and in 1939 he remarried to Yu Liqun, a Shanghai actress.[3][9] After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family and returned to Japan. (According to some Chinese text articles, his behavior towards her was "shameless" 无耻. For example, he refused to meet her when she went to see him in Hong Kong, 1948.)[10][11][12]

Guo Moruo was a prolific and talented writer from his earliest publishings. Following the full scale Japanese invasion of China, he fully developed his literary achievements with his Chinese opera in historical settings. The operas were set in the early Qing back through the Han dynasty. By using the historical figures in opera settings, he used all the devices including action, song, verse, costume, and drama. It was a renewal of an ancient art form which had contemporary relevance. Guo used the operas to develop patriotism and valor against invaders as well as to cultivate national unity against Chiang Kai-Shek .and Kuomingtong. All of this in the context of Marxism. The operas could be produced for Mao's peasant army to boost morale and incite courage. It paralleled Chen Fangwu's schools on the march. They both educated and molded a moving red army. This is an excerpt from his most famous opera "Qu Yuan". Guo's focus has shaped greatly towards the idea of patriotism since the nationalistic modern afterlife of Qu Yuan has always been deeply remembered by Chinese people and such character could motivate Chinese to fight against the invaders and protect the country.[13]

1937 he organized a propaganda troop for the Frontline.  Reported directly to Chou En-lai for wartime literary work as a "non-party" person. After Shanghai was lost in battle, Guo left Shanghai to Hongkong and Guangzhou to continue his study and movements.

1938 Went to frontline Wuhan as Third Political Section Head.  October Wuhan fell to Japanese.  Went to Chungking 重庆 in the interior of China..

1939  "Shi Gu Text Research"《石鼓文研究》published.  April 1940 archeology dig of Han tomb in Chungking which resulted in this study of the first known stone carved calligraphy. This dig was controversial since some archeologists were concerned about preservation. But Guo did his research and wrote his paper anyway.

Hu Fu 虎符 Commander Seal

1941 Edited. "50 Years of Verse" 《五十年简谱》. Rewrote "Cherry Blossom" 《棠棣之花》 (Excerpt from "Cherry Blossom")。1942 wrote historical dramas "Qu Yuan"《屈原》[14]、"Hu Fu"《虎符》, "Gao Jian Li"《高渐离》, "Peacock Courage"《孔雀胆》. Translated Goethe  "Hermann unt Dorothea"《赫曼与窦绿苔》.  Established  the publisher 群益出版社 and edited "Chong Yuan" (Central China) 《中原》.  1943 wrote a historical drama "Nan Guan Cao" 《南冠草》. Not only do the operas reflect the views discussed above. Even the archeological calligraphy study and the Goethe translation adhere to them. Despite the propaganda there is exceptional literary value accorded by the Chinese literary circles.[15] The following book "Thirty Snapshots from Guo Morue" 郭沫若的三十個剪影 by 邢小群 has lively discussions about the events at publication of the operas and other works. It includes reactions by Zhou En-lai and the opposing Kuomintong officials.[16] 1944 published 《甲申三百年祭》, a collection of writings which became designated study material by communist party.  1945 drafted  "Call for Democratic Politics".  Published  "Bronze Age"《青铜时代》 and《十批判书》.  Moved to Shanghai in the summer.  Joined the intermittent peace talk between Kuomintong and Communist parties.  Published "Historical Figures" 《历史人物》.[17]

1947 Translated Goethe's "Faust".  Edited "Time of Youth" 《少年时代》、"Spring and Autumn of Revolution"《革命春秋》, 《天地玄黄》.  Went to Hong Kong.  1948 wrote "War Memoirs" which he renamed "Hong Bo Qu" (for the song)《洪波曲》.  Then went to the red army liberated. areas in the Northeast (Civil war).[15] Even though he was not a military man, he liked to be near the action. He was pointed to be the academician of the Academia Sinica in Nanjing and later became the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing for his accomplishments in the area of study in Archaeology. In 1958 Guo wrote the historical play 《蔡文姬》which is another very important piece of work in Guo's life.[18]

Scene 4, circa 300 bc set just outside the Chu capitol's "Dragon Gate", with an old fisherman using a 4 corner net by the river. He sings:

Qu Yuan and Dragon Boat Festival

Qu Yuan ca. 300 bc. 屈原

Chinese Opera

. . 农民困在田间，

　　　　　　两腿泥巴糊遍。

　　　　　　一年的收成血和汗，

　　　　　　把主人的仓库填满。

Farmers toil in the fields,

Two legs covered in mud.

A year's harvest from blood and sweat,

Fills full the master's warehouse .

　　　　　　王侯睡在宫殿，

　　　　　　美姬仿佛神仙。

　　　　　　蚊虫和虱子真有眼，

　　　　　　不敢挨近他们身畔。

Princes and dukes sleep in palaces,

Their beautiful women like goddesses.

Mosquitoes and fleas are clever,

and do not go near their bodies.

　　　　　　上帝呆在云端，

　　　　　　两旁都是醉汉。

　　　　　　世间有多少灾和难，

　　　　　　他们闭着眼睛不管。

　　　　〔太阳西斜的时候，天上云霞时刻改变颜色。)

Emperor above stays dazed at the throne,

With drunks on both sides.

How much disaster and hardship in this world,

They close the eyes and ignore.

(The sun sets, rainbow clouds in the sky changes color.)

The scene changes to dialogues between the fisherman, a young palace woman and an old lady. They talk about a palace intrigue.

(Paraphrased from【剧本】屈原 郭沫若). These operas powerfully portrayed the dysfunctional society at the time and motivated legions of followers. They were also prescient. Seven years later Mao moved into Zongnanhai, the palace next to the Forbidden Palace. Guo moved into the compound formerly belonging to Qing Prince Gong. Both Mao and Guo were well known for taking advantage of women. Soon after his Great Leap Forward produced famine and after that the Culture Revolution produced greater disaster during which Guo lost two sons. Guo Moruo's life is full of ironies as the stream of recent research documents (check search term with Chinese name 郭沫若 inBing or Google ) .

Statue of Guo in Shichahai Park, Beijing

Along with holding important government offices in the People's Republic of China, Guo was a prolific writer, not just of poetry but also fiction, plays, autobiographies, translations, and historical and philosophical treatises. He was the first President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and remained so from its founding in 1949 until his death in 1978. He was also the first president of University of Science & Technology of China (USTC), a new type of university established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) after the founding of the People's Republic of China and aimed at fostering high-level personnel in the fields of science and technology.

For the first 15 years of the PRC, Guo, with his extensive knowledge of Chinese history and culture, was the ultimate arbiter of philosophical matters relating to art, education, and literature, although all of his most vital and important work had been written before 1949.

With the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Guo became an early target of persecution. To save face, he wrote a public self-criticism and declared that all his previous works were in error and should be burned. He then turned to writing poetry praising Mao's wife Jiang Qing and the Cultural Revolution and also denounced former friends and colleagues as counterrevolutionaries. However, this was not enough to protect his family. Two of his sons, Guo Minying and Guo Shiying, "committed suicide" in 1967 and 1968 following "criticism" or persecution by Red Guards.[19][20]

Because of his sycophantic loyalty to Mao, he survived the Cultural Revolution and received commendation by the chairman at the 9th Party Congress in April 1969. By the early 1970s, he had regained most of his influence. He enjoyed all the privileges of the highest-ranking party elites, including residence in a luxurious manor house once owned by a Qing official, a staff of assigned servants, a state limousine, and other perks. Guo also maintained a large collection of antique furniture and curios in his home.

In 1978, following Mao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four, the 85 year old Guo, as he lay dying in a Beijing hospital, penned a poem denouncing the Gang.

什么令人振奋的消息！ (What wonderful news!)

删除四人帮。 (Rooting out the Gang of Four.)

文学流氓。 (The literary rogue.)

政治流氓。 (The political rogue.)

险恶的顾问。 (The sinister adviser.)

白骨精。 (The White-Boned Demon.)

所有由铁扫帚一扫而空。 (All swept away by the iron broom.)

The White-Boned Demon was a character in the Ming-era novel Journey to the West, an evil shapeshifting being, and was a popular derogatory nickname for Jiang Qing.

Guo was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1951.

Guo was held in high regard in Chinese contemporary literature, history and archaeology. He once called himself the Chinese answer to Goethe and this appraisal was widely accepted. Zhou Yang said: "You are Goethe, but you are the Goethe of the New Socialist Era of China."("你是歌德，但你是社会主义时代新中国的歌德。")[21] Especially in his early years, he was a prolific writer as well as being multi-faceted. He wrote poetry, prose, opera, critiques, archeology and politics. He participated fully in the many literary journals of the 1920s to 30s. A unique contribution is the group of traditional Chinese operas in a modern context produced mainly in the 40s. Deng Xiaoping also spoke highly of Guo "Guo's literature creation is full of revolutionary strength and passion, he used it to praise people's revolutions, socialism and communism. Guo has started a new era of poetry and becomes our country's foundation of modern poetry. The historical plays he wrote is a strong weapon of educating our people and striking our enemies."[22] February 25, 1980, the first scholarship in China, Guo Moruo Scholarship was established in the University of Science and Technology of China where Guo once was the headmaster of.

Despite his achievements, he was also criticised as the first of "Four Contemporary Shameless Writers".[23][24][25] For example, he spoke highly of Mao Zedong's calligraphy, to the extent that he justified what the Party Leader had written mistakenly.[26] And during the Cultural Revolution, he published a book called Li Bai and Du Fu in which he praised Li Bai while belittling Du Fu, which was thought to flatter Mao Zedong.[27] His attitude to the Gang of Four changed sharply before and after its downfall.[28][29] In his private life, he was also known to have affairs with many women, whom he abandoned shortly after. One of them, Li Chen (立忱), committed suicide after his betrayal (disputed).[30] As a romantic writer, his shameless act of turning back on his second wife Sato was pointed out to be proving that Guo has such a pattern of cheating and disloyalty. Sato had to raise two kids of Guo's single-handedly in Japan from 1947 to 1949 under a great amount of pressure due to the fact that the father of the two kids is a Chinese man.

Fish and Wine Poetry Feast 鱼酒唱和会 1937. Guo Moru 郭沫若 , Shen Yinmo 沈尹默, Zhang Fengju 张凤举 and his new bride Zhang Weijun 张蕙君, Shen Mai Shi 沈迈士, and 褚保权

鱼酒唱和诗卷 手卷. (See Chinese text and translation here.)

November 1937 just before Guo went to join the red army, he was able to enjoy a poem recital party.with old friends. They were friends about a dozen years ago in Beijing and Tokyo and collaborated closely on many literary journals. Guo Moruo 郭沫若 just came back from his 10-year exile in Japan. These friends just arranged his Shanghai accommodations. Guo, Shen Yinmo, with his constant companion Zhubaoquan 保權, Zhang Fengju 张凤举  with his new bride and Shen Wangsi 沈迈士 enjoyed a fish and wine fest to produce this joint handscroll.  The celebration was in the Jingjiang Hotel. Not long after this, Guo departed to join the red army at the front lines against the Japanese near Shanghai.

These are three paragraphs, by Guo Moruo, Zhang Fengju and Shen Yinmo: 麵條要板板，冷水再沖沖。玉箸拈之碧，椒油拌以紅。命長增口福，運大足心雄。省得聰明誤，聾盲備一躬。 十一月五日與尹默保權、鳳舉夫婦共飲於錦江，尹默答余沖字韻詩，即席步韻成一即事之作。余才短，未能立即唱和，歸途始得此，今日復應尹默招，地同人同，尹默復帶有良紙佳筆，因書出之，奉尹默先生。郭沫若 (Guo Moruo) (Verse about long firm noodles dressed with jade chopsticks and red sauce bring long life and achieve ambitions. Also lists each person there. )   廿六年十一月八日於錦江 沫若兄此詩句句皆有本事，惟地同人同一語與事實略有出入。因今日座中另有邁士先生在，特拈出之以備後日史家之索考。 舉 (Ju for Zhang Fengju) (1937 Nov 8 at Jingjiang. Moruo shows talent except he missed Wangsi also here for the record. Signed Ju). .....

才飲自家酒，酒氣已沖沖。玉箸依然碧，胭脂分外紅。多魚歎今日，凡韻怪茲雄。沫若輸一着，聰明半在躬。 即席聯吟，沫若易末兩語為「賭酒誰之罪，吃虧應反躬」. 尹默 ( Yinmo)  鳳舉 (Fengju) (Jointly composed poem about drinking, the fish, the poems and joking about Guo. by Sheng Yinmo and Zhang Fengju) [32]  

(See reference for full translations)

Guo Muoruo and Sato Tomiko with their children

Guo had five children (four sons and a daughter) with Sato Tomiko and six with Yu Liqun (four sons and two daughters). An article published in the 2000s said that eight out of the eleven were alive, and that three have died.[33]

With Sato Tomiko (listed chronologically in the order of birth):[34]

• son Guo Hefu (郭和夫) (December 12 (or 31, according to other sources) 1917, Okayama - September 13, 1994). A chemist, he moved from Japan to Taiwan in 1946 and to mainland China in 1949. He was the founder of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.[35]
• son Guo Bo (郭博) (born 1920), a renowned architect and photographer. He came to China in 1955, invited by his father, and worked in Shanghai, where he participated in the design of many of its famous modern buildings.[35] Guo Bu is also known as a photographer of Shanghai's heritage architecture;[35] an album of his photographic work has been published as a book.[36]
• son Guo Fusheng (郭福生).
• daughter Guo Shuyu (郭淑禹), a Japanese-language teacher, now deceased.
• son Guo Zhihong (郭志宏).

With Yu Liqun (listed chronologically in the order of birth):

• son Guo Hanying (郭汉英) (born 1941, Chongqing). An internationally published theoretical physicist.[35]
• daughter Guo Shuying (郭庶英).[37] She published a book about her father.[38]
• son Guo Shiying (郭世英) (1942 - April 22, 1968). In 1962, while a philosophy student at Beijing University, he created an "underground" "X Poetry Society". In the summer of 1963 the society was exposed and deemed subversive. Guo Shiying was sentenced to re-education through labor. While working at a farm in Henan province, he developed interest in agriculture. Returning to Beijing in 1965, he enrolled at Beijing Agricultural University. In 1968, kidnapped by Red Guards and "tried" by their "court" for his poetry-society activity years before he jumped out of the window of the third-floor room where he was held and died at the age of 26. His father in his later writing expressed regret for encouraging his son to return to Beijing from the farm, thinking that it indirectly led to his death.[19][39]
• son Guo Minying (郭民英), (November 1943, Chongqing - April 12, 1967). His death is described as an unexpected suicide.[39]
• daughter Guo Pingying (郭平英)
• son Guo Jianying (郭建英) (born 1953).

During the time period where Guo finished the anthology of poem, The Goddess, (Nüshen女神) in 1921. Most of the poems are written while Guo was studying abroad in Japan. The most representative poems in the anthology are "Nirvana of the Phoenix" and "O, Earch, My mother". It was right after the May Fourth Movement in China.(1919) This particular piece of work shows a sense of Guo's attitudes towards the society conflicts at that time, and how the movement has deeply and strongly affected Chinese artistic style in the 1920s and the 1930s.[4] As for the poetry expression, the anthology jumped out of the old Chinese poetry frameworks and became a new style which represents freedom and new ideas just like the transition of China from tradition to modernity. The creation of the anthology marks the beginning of a new era in the modern Chinese literature works.[4] The style and expression type of The Goddess has become the foundation of the modern Chinese poetry and has started a so-called "Poetry Revolution" in China. Some of the ideas in this poetry anthology are from Guo Moruo's experience from his participation in the New Culture Movement and most are from the May Fourth Movement. The new ideas are first the desire of freedom, where people focus on self-expressing and showing the true inside of one's nature, to find out and confirm one's value and seek self-exploration. What's more, nationalism is another focus in the new ideas where people shoud unite and love their countries. Last but not least, the idea of fighting and rebelling is another theme in the anthology.

In 1942 Guo Moruo wrote historical dramas "Qu Yuan"《屈原》. Different from the poetry anthologyThe Goddess, Qu Yuan was completed by Guo Moruo twenty years later where his literary skills have been more mature and enriched. Also, Guo's focus has shaped greatly towards the idea of patriotism since the nationalistic modern afterlife of Qu Yuan has always been deeply remembered by Chinese people and such character could motivate Chinese to fight against the invaders and protect the country.[40] Qu Yuan is considered to be the most influential and well-known piece of literature work of Guo Moruo. The five-scene drama was completed by Guo within ten days and was first played in Chongqin. Later the drama was played in many countries abroad such as Russia and Japan. The sublimity in this particular drama covered its flaws and drawbacks and shows a strong sense of the theme of patriotism and rebellion against the invaders.[40][41] This drama has been greatly influenced by the political views at that time, therefore, the criticisms or praises are mostly coming from the aspect of political views but not from the perspective of a literature. People criticises the play for it being too "simple" and "casual", however, this could not deny the fact that it greatly brought up the attention of nationalism and patriotism of Chinese people during that time.