Guo Moruo (November 16, 1892 – June 12, 1978), courtesy name Dingtang, was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official. A prominent Chinese writer in the May Fourth Movement and later in the Mao era, he was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. The persecution led him to denounce his colleagues and his past work and demand that all of it be burned, an act for which he was labeled "shameless". He regained prominence in the 1970s and is generally well-regarded in modern China.

Biography

Family history

Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November 10 or 16, in the small town of Shawan, located on the Dadu River some southwest from what was then called the city of Jiading (Lu) (Chia-ting (Lu), ), and now is the central urban area of the prefecture level city of Leshan in Sichuan Province.

At the time of Guo's birth, Shawan was a town of some 180 families.

Guo's father's ancestors were Hakkas from Ninghua County in Tingzhou Prefecture, near the western border of Fujian. They moved to Sichuan in the second half of the 17th century, after Sichuan had lost much of its population to the rebels/bandits of Zhang Xianzhong ( 1605–1647). According to family legend, the only possessions 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 leaders of the local river shipping business, and thus important people in that entire region of Sichuan. It was only then that the Guo clan members became able to send their children to school.

After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushu Imperial University in Fukuoka. During this period he published ten monographs on archeology of the Shang and Zhou periods and ancient Chinese script, thus establishing himself as a preeminent scholar in the field.

In the summer of 1937, shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities, After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family.

In early February 1942, Guo created a five-act historical drama 虎符, Hǔfú ("Tiger Talisman") in a single nine-day period.

In 1942, Guo's essay The Answer to Nora was published in New China Daily. Guo's essay responded to Lu Xun's question "what happens after Nora"—the principal character in Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House -- "leaves home".

Beginning in the middle of 1958, the new folk song movement sought to compile folk songs and poetry. Among the major compendiums of these folk works was Red Flag Ballads, compiled by Guo and Zhou Yang, which presented the works of amateur poets anonymously as part of an effort to develop the figure of the mass writer in communist art and literature. He copied one of their diaries by hand in a form of penance.

<!--

citation re: the death of one of GMR's sons caused by "struggle against" (persecution) by Red Guards during CR:

(via news.google.com)

"Suicide of Chinese Reported

$3.95 - New York Times - Jul 10, 1968

The Moscow radio reported today that the son of Kuo Mo-jo, Communist China's leading in....., has committed suicide after systematic attacks on him in the ... "

Also, for one who reads Chinese, this could be one good source:

The cultural revolution years are around pp. 450-455.

-->

thumb|right|Guo Moruo's desk when he was the president of the [[University of Science and Technology of China, displayed at USTC History Museum.]]

Because of his loyalty to Mao, he survived the Cultural Revolution and received commendation by the chairman at the 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party 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 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.

:: (What wonderful news!)

:: (Rooting out the Gang of Four.)

:: (The literary rogue.)

:: (The political rogue.)

:: (The sinister adviser.)

:: (The White-Boned Demon.)

:: (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.

In March of the same year (1978), Guo defied illness to attend the First National Science Conference, the first of its kind to be held since the end of the Cultural Revolution. He was visibly frail and it would be the last time he was seen in public before his death three months later.

Guo was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.

Legacy

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." ("")

However, he has also been criticised. For example, he spoke highly of Mao Zedong's calligraphy, to the extent that he justified what the CCP leader had written mistakenly. His historical works have been described by some historians as "near-pseudohistorical" due to his alleged political manipulation of ancient Chinese classics. 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. His attitude to the Gang of Four changed sharply before and after its downfall.

He is generally well-regarded in modern China. His actions during the Cultural Revolution are not commonly discussed, but some academics view him as a negative example of intellectual subservience and political flip-flopping.

In his private life, he was also known to have affairs with many women, whom he abandoned shortly afterwards. One of them, Li Chen (), allegedly committed suicide after his betrayal, although this is disputed.

Family

thumb|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.

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

  • son Guo Hefu () (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.
  • son Guo Bo () (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.
  • son Guo Fusheng ().
  • daughter Guo Shuyu (), a Japanese-language teacher, now deceased.
  • son Guo Zhihong ().

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

  • son Guo Hanying () (born 1941, Chongqing). An internationally published theoretical physicist. <!-- She studied biophysics at University of Science and Technology of China - the institution that her father had founded in 1958 and was the first president of. --> She published a book about her father.
  • son Guo Shiying () (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.
  • son Guo Minying (), (November 1943, Chongqing - April 12, 1967). His death is described as an unexpected suicide.
  • Guo and Sato Tomiko's house in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan, where they lived from 1927 to 1937, is a museum as well. Due to the Guo Moruo connection, Ichikawa chose to establish sister city relations with Leshan in 1981.
  • W.E.B. Du Bois dedicated his poem I Sing to China to Guo.

Honours

  • Commemorative Medal of the 2500th Anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire (1971)

Bibliography

This is a select bibliography. A fuller bibliography may be found in: A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature, 1900-1949, edited by Milena Doleželová-Velingerová et al.

Poetry, stories, novellas, plays

  • 1921: Goddess: Songs and Poems (). English translation: Selected Poems from the Goddesses, A. C. Barnes and John Lester, tr., Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1958.
  • 1926, 1932: Olives (), Shanghai: Chuangzao she chubanshe bu, 1929 (book series: Chuangzao she congshu).
  • 1928, 1932: Fallen Leaves (), Shanghai : Xin zhong guo shu ju, 1932.
  • 1936: Chu Yuan: Five Acts ();. English translation: Chu Yuan: A Play in Five Acts, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, tr., Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1953; 2nd edition, 1978; Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001.
  • 1946: "Under the Moonlight", in: The China Magazine (formerly China at War), June 1946; reprinted in: Chi-Chen Wang, ed., Stories of China at War, Columbia University Press, 1947; reprinted: Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1975.
  • 1947: Laughter Underground (), Shanghai and Beijing: Hai yan shu dian - selected stories.
  • 1959: Red Flag Ballad (), Beijing Shi: Hongqi zhazhi she (= Red Flag Magazine), 1959; English translation: Songs of the Red Flag, Yang Zhou, tr., Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1961.

Autobiography

Guo wrote nine autobiographical works:

  • 1947: My Youth (), Shanghai.
  • French translation: ', tr. Pierre Ryckmans, Paris, Gallimard, 1970.
  • German translation: ', tr. Ingo Schäfer, Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1981.
  • Before and After the Revolution (Fanzheng qianhou).
  • 1930, 1931: The Black Cat and the Tower (), Shanghai, 1930. - often referred to just as Black Cat ().
  • The First Outing of Kuimen (Chuchu Kuimen).
  • My Student Years (Wode xuesheng shidai).
  • 1932: Ten Years of Creation (), Shanghai : Xian dai shu ju, 1932.
  • 1938: Sequel to Ten Years of Creation (), Shanghai : Bei xin shuju. (book series: Chuangzuo xin kan).
  • On the Road of the Northern Expedition (Beifa Tuci).
  • 洪波曲 / Hongbo qu.

Historical, educational, and philosophical treatises

  • 1935, rev. ed., 1957: 兩周金文辭大系圖彔攷釋 / Liang Zhou jin wen ci da xi tu lu kao shi (Corpus of Inscriptions on Bronzes from the Two Zhou [Chou] Dynasties), Beijing: Ke xue chu ban she, 1957 (考古学专刊. 甲种 = Archaeological monograph series).
  • 1950: "Report on Culture and Education", in: The First Year of Victory, Peking, Foreign Languages Press.
  • 1951: Culture and Education in New China, Peking : Foreign Languages Press, 1951 (joint authors: Chien Chun-jui, Liu Tsun-chi, Mei Tso, Hu Yu-chih, Coching Chu and Tsai Chu-sheng).
  • 1982: 甲骨文合集 Jiaguwen Heji (Oracle Collection), Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1978–1983, 13 volumes (edited with Hu Houxuan) - collection of 41,956 oracle bone inscriptions from Yinxu.

Other nonfiction

  • Appeal and Resolutions of the First Session of the World Peace Council : Berlin; February 21–26, 1951; Kuo Mo-jo's Speech at the World Peace Council, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1951.
  • Kuo Mo-jo, "The Struggle for the Creation of New China's Literature" in: Zhou Enlai, The People's New Literature : Four Reports at the First All-China Conference of Writers and Artists, Peking: Cultural Press, 1951.

Translations

  • 1922: J. W. von Goethe, Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
  • 1924: Kawakami Hajime, Social Organization and Social Revolution
  • 1924：Omar Khayyam，Rubaiyat
  • 1925: Ivan Turgenev, Xin shi dai (Virgin Soil)
  • 1926: Schiller, Wallenstein
  • 1928: Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra)
  • 1928: J. W. von Goethe, Faust, I. Teil
  • 1929: Upton Sinclair, Tu chang (The Jungle)
  • 1931: Karl Marx, Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy)
  • 1935: Leo Tolstoy, Voina i mir (War and Peace)

Contributions

  • 1974: Cho Wen-chün: A Play in Three Acts (abridged), in: Straw Sandals: Chinese Short Stories, 1918-1933, Harold R. Isaacs, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

References

Further reading

  • Chen Xiaoming, From The May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2007.
  • Arif Dirlik, "Kuo Mo-jo and Slavery in Chinese History", in: Arif Dirlik, Revolution and History : The Origins of Marxist Historiography in China, 1919-1937, Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 1978, pp.&nbsp;137–179. Also online here (UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982–2004).
  • Robert Elegant, "Confucius to Shelley to Marx: Kuo Mo-jo", in: Robert Elegant, China's Red Masters, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1951; reprinted: Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1971
  • Gudrun Fabian, "Guo Moruo: Shaonian shidai", 4 November 2020, in: Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, Living Edition (i.e. online edition), Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ed.
  • Marian Galik, The Genesis of Modern Chinese Literary Criticism (1917–1930), Routledge, 1980 - includes chapter: "Kuo Mo-jo and his Development from Aesthetico-impressionist to Proletarian Criticism"
  • James Laughlin, New Directions in Prose and Poetry 19: An Anthology, New York: New Directions, 1966.
  • Jean Monsterleet, Sommets de la littérature chinoise contemporaine, Paris: Editions Domat, 1953. "Includes a general overview of the literary renaissance from 1917-1950, as well as sections on Novel (with chapters on Ba Jin, Mao Dun, Lao She and Shen Congwen), Stories and Essays (with chapters on Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Bing Xin, and Su Xuelin), Theater (Cao Yu, Guo Moruo), and Poetry (Xu Zhimo, Wen Yiduo, Bian Zhilin, Feng Zhi, and Ai Qing). Source: General Literary Studies 1
  • Jaroslav Prusek, ed., Studies in Modern Chinese Literature, Ostasiatische Forschungen, Schriften der Sektion fur Sinologie bei der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Heft 2. Berlin (East), Akademie Verlag, 1964
  • David Tod Roy, Kuo Mo-jo: The Early Years, Cambridge: Mass., Harvard University Press, 1971 (Harvard East Asian series, 55)
  • Shi Shumei, The Lure of the Modern : Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917-1937, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2001, especially chapter "Psychoanalysis and Cosmopolitanism: The Work of Guo Moruo"
  • Yang Guozheng, "Malraux et Guo Moruo: deux intellectuels engagés", in: Présence d'André Malraux No. 5/6, Malraux et la Chine: Actes du colloque international de Pékin 18, 19 et 20 avril 2005 (printemps 2006), pp.&nbsp;163–172.

Journals

  • = Journal of Guo Moruo Studies, Century Journals Project - Literature/History/Philosophy (Series F): 1987 - 1993, at ebscohost.com
  • Guo Moruo at Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Guo Moruo newssc.org
  • Guo Moruo's rare masterpiece... demonstrates extraordinary talents at inf.news
  • (Photo) Kuo Mo-Jo speaking at great figures of world culture meeting, December 12, 1956 at digitalcommonwealth.org
  • Kuo Mo-jo And Peiping's Power Struggle

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