Guo Moruo was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official . He joined the Kuomintang . Guo Moruo, however, confronted with Chiang Kai-shek and joined the Chinese communist party. He took various high government positions and became the first President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences until his death in 1987.
Background
Guo Moruo's father's ancestors were Hakkas from Ninghua County (xian) in Tingzhou fu, near the western border of Fujian. According to family legend, the only possessions that Guo's ancestors brought to Sichuan were things they could carry on their backs. Guo Moruo's great-grandfather, Guo Xianlin, was the first in the family to achieve a degree of prosperity. Guo Moruo's father, one of whose names may possibly have been Guo Mingxing (1854-1939), had to drop out of school at the age of 13, spent half a year as an apprentice at a salt well, and then entered his father's business. Guo Moruo's mother came from a scholar-official background.
Education
The study was based on Chinese classics, but with the government education reforms of 1901, mathematics and other modern subjects started to be introduced.He continued to a middle school , acquiring by this time the reputation of an academically gifted student but a troublemaker. His peers respected him and often elected him a delegate to represent their interests in front of the school administration. Often spearheading student-faculty conflicts, he was expelled and reinstated a few times, and finally expelled for good.
He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely that of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Bengali poet Tagore. Along with numerous translations, he published his first poem anthology, titled The Goddesses (1921). He co-founded the Ch'uang-tsao she ("Creation Society") in Shanghai, which promoted modern and vernacular literature.
Career
He joined the Communist Party of China in 1927. He was involved in the Communist Nanchang Uprising and fled to Japan after its failure. In the summer of 1937, soon after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. Along with holding important government offices in the People's Republic of China, he was a prolific writer, not just of poetry but also fiction, plays, autobiographies, translations, and historical and philosophical treatises.In 1966 he was one of the first to be attacked in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He confessed that he had not properly understood the thought of Mao Zedong, and agreed that his works should be burned. However, this was not enough to protect his family.
Politics
n this work, he attempted to demonstrate, according to the Communist doctrine, the “slave society” nature of ancient China. His theory on the "slave society of China" remains highly controversial, although it was praised by Mao and the party.
Views
Guo Moruo promoted a romantic style of writing.
