Xu Zhimo

Xú Zhìmó

Xu Zhimo (徐志摩, Xú Zhìmó; born January 15, 1897 in the province of Zhejiang , † November 19, 1931 in a plane crash) was a Chinese poet who was influenced by works of English Romanticism .

Life

Xu Zhimo came from a wealthy merchant family. Therefore, for him, the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 was associated with a revival of the family's trading and banking business, including arms deals. Trained at modern schools in the province, he then first attended a college in Shanghai , then in Beijing , and finally ended up at the Institute for Law and Politics at the University of Beijing .

Barely 21 years old, he entered into a relationship with Zhāng Yòuyí (張幼儀) arranged by the two families. A year later their first son was born, and a second in 1922. However, the marriage ended in divorce a few months later.

In 1918, Xu Zhimo continued his studies in the United States , where he earned a master's degree in political science from Columbia University . Two years later he moved to London, where he was preparing a doctorate at the School of Economics . But eventually he moved to King's College in Cambridge to study literature. In addition to translations, his first poems also came from this phase of his life.

After his return to China in 1922, he took on a teaching position at Nankai University in 1923 and at Beijing University in 1924. He later worked as the editor of the Beijing Morning News newspaper , and not only in this context, he takes a critical stance towards communism.

with Lù Xiǎomàn

In 1926, Xu Zhimo married Lù Xiǎomàn (陸小曼) for the second time and shortly afterwards was confronted with the hardship of life for the first time: Unrest in Zhejiang Province forced the family to leave their parents' lands, which also denied Xu Zhimo any further financial opportunities Support, and the publication of a newly founded literary magazine had to be stopped again for financial reasons. These impressions and the social conditions characterized by unrest and poverty in general led to depression in Xu Zhimo. From then on, after his marriage to Lu Xiaoman was also in crisis, he spent a lot of time traveling abroad and on site with sinister descriptions of the difficult living conditions.

In 1931 he was killed in a plane crash on the route from Nanking to Beijing.

Web links

Commons : Xu Zhimo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Xu Zhimo in the catalog of the German National Library
• Former Residence of Xu Zhimo (Museum of Xu Zhimo's Life and Work in Haining , Zhejiang Province ; English)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Xu is the family name here, Zhimo is the first name.