Guo Moruo: Destruction and Creation

Guo Moruo (1892-1978), a native of Leshan, Sichuan, entered a private school in his childhood, went to Tokyo to study medicine in 1914, and later was obsessed with literature. Guo Moruo and students in Japan including Yu Dafu, Cheng Fangwu and Zhang Ziping established the Creation Society in 1921, and published the poetry collection The Goddesses in the same year. After the War of Resistance against Japan broke out in 1937, he returned to China and actively engaged himself in the movement of resisting Japan and saving the nation from extinction. Meanwhile, he also provided a wake-up call for the times and society with his literary creations, and put forward deep thoughts about the nation's fate. His historical dreams represented by Qu Yuan evoked great repercussions. "Unification of poetry and drama" is an important characteristic of all creations of Guo Moruo. His literary theories and creative practices with a special poetic quality show strong romantic characteristics, magical association and imagination, passionate creative spirit and creative talent.

The Goddesses is Guo Moruo's first collection of vernacular new poems and the first collection of new poems representing outstanding achievements and having huge influence in the history of Chinese modern literature. Though some new poetry collections emerged before the publication of The Goddesses, The Goddesses opened whole new space for Chinese modern poetry with brand new contents and forms. The emergence of The Goddesses let people see brand new consciousness of times, "a great resisting force" and a "manifestation of the 20th century's power" from Chinese poems and Chinese poets for the first time. The Goddesses deeply impressed readers in that period with its vigorous and magnificent style of poetry, grand and profound artistic conceptions and pure feelings not restricted by techniques. It can be said that the publication of The Goddesses ended the age of old poetry and at the same time started the age of new poetry.

Most poems in The Goddesses were written during the poet's overseas studies in Japan. The Goddesses clearly conveys the spirit of destroying the old, establishing the new, rushing forward and making giant strides during the "May 4th" Movement, and the surging imagination, rapid rhythms, grand momentum, magnificent colors and free style of poetry constitute its romantic characteristics. The "May 4th" Movement gave the poet intense emotions. His representative works such as Nirvana of the Phoenix, The Heavenly Hound, Good Morning, Coal in the Stove and Goddess Regeneration symbolically reflect the ancient nation's great awakening in the climax of the "May 4th" Movement from the commanding height of the times. Burning with bold denial and ruthless execration of all old order, old traditions and old ethical codes and calling for creation, brightness, democracy and progress like a tsunami, it excited and inspired a whole generation of people.

The unstrained genre of vernacular free poems with great momentum is the most peculiar and exciting creation in The Goddesses, They really opened new space for free poetry after the "May 4th" Movement. The emergence of these poems was, on the one hand, a manifestation of the poet's broad mind and abundant imagination and, on the other hand, a product of the spirit of the times surging during the "May 4th" Movement. Guo Moruo's free poetry breaks with traditional poetry's restrictions, having no fixed metric and form and even no end rhyme, but poems' internal melodies are harmonious and consistent with the poet's emotional beats. At many places, the poet used overlapping and repeated lines to express endless imagination and emotion, arousing readers' strong inner excitement and making them angry, shout and resist with him. Just like his expectation in Preface, The Goddesses "pulled young people's heartstrings and enlightened them" during the "May 4th" Movement.

No other new poet ever achieved the momentum particular to The Goddesses. The words "good morning" shouted 27 times without a break are earthshaking, showing the poet's emotions, readers' resonance and the times' echoes and, more importantly, manifesting a creator's courage and air! As to that "heavenly hound" daring to swallow the universe and everything, people usually praise the poet's extraordinary imagination and exaggeration, but actually what is more important here is not imagination and exaggeration, but the poet's courage to imagine and exaggerate like that. Such courage enabled Guo Moruo's creations to always keep the general goal in sight at the height of history and times and directly have dialogues with times and history, with human society, with nature and with the whole universe. Therefore, Guo Moruo's poems have broad vision encompassing everything and supreme mighty power dominating everything.

In terms of poetry forms, Guo Moruo advocated "absolute freedom." He said, "I want to eliminate all poetry forms and write my own things with just the right flavor." Nirvana of the Phoenix is just a manifestation of his view. The form of poetic drama is adopted for the whole poem, the poem's atmosphere develops with the story harmoniously, the rhythm is clear and melodious, the sentence structures are variable, lively and free, not limited to one pattern and very suitable for singing and dancing.

Another glorious manifestation of Guo Moruo's "unification of poetry and drama" was his creation of historical dramas. Qu Yuan was written in 1942. Through Qu Yuan's tragedy, he manifested the major theme of opposing division and surrender, advocating unity in resisting foreign aggression, cursing darkness and eulogizing brightness with realistic significance, and expressed the Chinese nation's aspiration to strive for liberation in spite of violence. Guo Moruo's historical dramas represented by Qu Yuan formed a unique and salient artistic style and charm. In terms of material selection and cutting, it fully shows the association between history and reality, grasping history and opportunities of creation. Qu Yuan is based on the historical story of vertical integration for resisting the Qin State in the Warring States Period, which shares very similar spiritual connotations with the specific situation of China's War of Resistance against Japan in the early 1940s; the protagonist Qu Yuan's personality and temperament also needed to be carried forward by the Chinese nation urgently in that period. In terms of reshaping of historical characters, Guo Moruo structured dramatic conflicts with characters' fates on the basis of depicting characters' personalities, revealed themes and pushed forward the drama's development through characters' powerful self-expression, and thus broke from modern stage plays' basic pattern of taking plot development as the main clue. Guo Moruo's creative elaboration and interpretation give a series of historical figures including Qu Yuan a realistic sense of nobility and greatness and a historical sense of profoundness and solemnity. Besides, Guo Moruo's historical dramas are often mingled with a lot of folk songs and lyric poems. Some appear repeatedly according to plot development, and some are chanted repeatedly by protagonists directly, such as Ode to Tangerines and Ode to Thunder and Lightning in Qu Yuan, the poem on the journey to the north in Chinese Bush Cherry Flowers, Great Sadness in South Crown Grass, the eulogistic song in Tiger-shaped Tally, etc. These lyric poems and songs not only strengthen the atmospheres, highlight the characters' personalities and enhance the script themes, but also integrate into the whole scripts as inseparable organic components. Guo Moruo was also good at using long soliloquies full of flavor in historical dramas to fully indicate characters' abundant and complicated inner feelings. Dialogues of characters in dramas and the author's narrations are also full of musical rhythms and poetic passion. Such poetic language shows the characteristic of unification of poetry and drama particular to Guo Moruo.