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Xu Zhimo (徐志摩, , Mandarin: , 15 January 1897 – 19 November 1931) was a Chinese poet. Best known for his work in modern Chinese poetry, he strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms and to reshape it under the influences of Western poetry and the vernacular Chinese language. He died in a plane crash at age 34.
Xu was born in Haining, Zhejiang and graduated from Hangzhou High School, a well-known school in Southern China. He married Zhang Youyi in 1915 and attended Peiyang University in 1916 (now Tianjin University) to study law. In 1917, he moved to Peking University (PKU) due to the law department of Peiyang University merging into PKU. In 1918, he traveled to the United States to earn his bachelor's degree at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he took up a major in political and social sciences, along with a minor in history.
Shortly afterward, he enrolled at Columbia University in New York to pursue a graduate degree in economics and politics in 1919. He left New York in 1920, having found the U.S. "intolerable", to go study in England at London School of Economics. In 1921, he transferred to King's College, Cambridge as a special student, where he fell in love with English Romanticism poetry like that of Keats and Shelley. Study at King's: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
He was also influenced by the French romantic and symbolist poets, some of whose works he translated into Chinese. In 1922 he returned to China and became a leading figure of the modern poetry movement. In 1923, he founded the Crescent Moon Society, a China literary society that was part of the larger New Culture Movement, believing in "art for art's sake" and often engaging in running debates with the "art for politics' sake" (Chinese Communist Party-driven) League of the Left-Wing Writers. (1986). 9780521243384, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521243384 to excerpt
When the Bengali poetry Rabindranath Tagore visited China, Xu Zhimo served as one of his oral interpreters. Xu used vernacular Chinese and translated Western romantic forms into modern Chinese poetry. He worked as an editor and professor at several schools before his death on 19 November 1931, dying in a plane crash near Jinan and Tai'an, Shandong "Xu Zhimo." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2011. while flying on a Stinson Detroiter from Nanjing to Beijing. He left behind four collections of verse and several volumes of translations from various languages.
Xu was also romantically linked to American author Pearl S. Buck and American journalist Agnes Smedley.
In an obituary, writer Wen Yuan-ning commented that Xu's "relations with women are exactly like Shelley's. Let no woman flatter herself that Tse-mo has ever loved her; he has only loved his own inner version of Ideal Beauty.""The Late Mr. Hsu Tse-mo, A Child," in Wen Yuan-ning, "Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Modern Chinese Celebrities," edited by Christopher Rea (Amherst, MA: Cambria Press, 2018), p. 45.
The accident was attributed to both pilots' misjudgement of the flight's altitude as well as their failure to recognize the terrain. However, it was rumoured that Xu was murdered, although this was confirmed to be untrue.
The one used here (by permission) was translated by Guohua Chen and published in the University of Cambridge's 800th anniversary book,Peter Pagnamenta (ed.) The University of Cambridge: an 800th Anniversary Portrait, London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2008, page 29. Guohua Chen retained the right to republish, and contributed the translation to Wikipedia. and differs from the one quoted in the carvings of the Xu Zhimo Friendship Garden added around the Memorial stone by King's College in 2018.
輕輕的我走了， 正如我輕輕的來； 我輕輕的招手， 作別西天的雲彩。 那河畔的金柳， 是夕陽中的新娘； 波光裡的艷影， 在我的心頭蕩漾。 軟泥上的青荇， 油油地在水底招搖； 在康河的柔波裡， 我甘心做一條水草！ 那榆蔭下的一潭， 不是清泉，是天上虹； 揉碎在浮藻間， 沉澱著彩虹似的夢。 尋夢？撐一支長篙， 向青草更青處漫溯； 滿載一船星輝， 在星輝斑斕裡放歌。 但我不能放歌， 悄悄是別離的笙簫； 夏蟲也為我沉默， 沉默是今晚的康橋！ 悄悄的我走了， 正如我悄悄的來； 我揮一揮衣袖， 不帶走一片雲彩。 | By Xu Zhimo Softly I am leaving, Just as softly as I came; I softly wave goodbye To the clouds in the western sky. The golden willows by the riverside Are young brides in the setting sun; Their glittering reflections on the shimmering river Keep undulating in my heart. The green tape grass rooted in the soft mud Sways leisurely in the water; I am willing to be such a waterweed In the gentle flow of the River Cam. That pool in the shade of elm trees Holds not clear spring water, but a rainbow Crumpled in the midst of duckweeds, Where rainbow-like dreams settle. To seek a dream? Go punting with a long pole, Upstream to where green grass is greener, With the punt laden with starlight, And sing out loud in its radiance. Yet now I cannot sing out loud, Peace is my farewell music; Even crickets are now silent for me, For Cambridge this evening is silent. Quietly I am leaving, Just as quietly as I came; Gently waving my sleeve, I am not taking away a single cloud. (6 November 1928) |
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