Guo Moruo

Guo lMoruo was one of modem China’s most important poets.He was born in 1892 in a beautiful village at the foot of Mount Enei in Si Chuan Province. He began to write around 1919, and was one of the founders of the Creation Society,a well-known progressive literary group of the 1920s. Guo lMoruo was not only a poet, but also a story-writer and dramatist. His research made an outstanding contribution to the knowledge of ancient Chinese history and the Chinese language; he was also active in the international peace movement.

His collections of poems included “The Goddesses”,”Starry Sky”,”The Vase”,”The Forerunner”,”Recovery”,”Battle Cries”, Cicada”,”Ode to New China”and “More Poems”. The “Goddesses”, considered by Chinese literary critics as to have “inaugurated a n period on poetry,”was representative of his early work.”Rebirth of the Goddesses”and “The Nirvana of the Feng and Huang”were written at the end of 1919 and the beginning of 1920. This was just after the May Fourth Movement in China, which influenced Guo Moruo greatly.

These poems reflected his passionate opposition as a revolutionary democrat to feudalism. The theme of “Rebirth of the Goddesses”comes from ancient Chinese mythology, as the author explains in a note at the end of the poem. In this work he condens the tyranny of pastrulers, satirizes the warlords of the period after the 1911 Revolution and voices the sufferings of the people under their rule.”The Nirvana of the Feng and Huang”symbolizes the rebirth of China after the May Fourth Movement.

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