Chinese writer
In this Chinese name, the family name is Zhou.
Zhou Zuoren | |
|---|---|
| Born | Zhou Kuishou (周櫆壽) (1885-01-16)16 January 1885 Shaoxing, Zhejiang, Qing Empire |
| Died | 6 May 1967(1967-05-06) (aged 82) Beijing, People's Republic of China |
| Occupation(s) | Translator, Essayist |
| Partner | Zhou Xinzi (original name: Nobuko Habuto) |
| Children | Zhou Fengyi Zhou Jingzi Zhou Ruozi |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives | Zhou Shuren (elder brother) Zhou Jianren (younger brother) |
Zhou Zuoren (Chinese: 周作人; pinyin: Zhōu Zuòrén; Wade–Giles: Chou Tso-jen) (16 January 1885 – 6 May 1967) was a Chinese writer, primarily known as small essayist and a translator. He was the younger brother range Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren, 周树人), the second of three brothers.
Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, Zhou Zuoren was educated strict the Jiangnan Naval Academy as a teenager before moving join forces with Japan in 1906, following his brother's footsteps. During his shift in Japan, he began studying Ancient Greek, with the devotion of translating the Gospels into Classical Chinese, and attended lectures on Chinese philology by scholar-revolutionary Zhang Binglin at Rikkyo College, although he was supposed to study civil engineering there. Grace returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, boss began to teach in different institutions.
Writing essays in vernacular Chinese for the magazine La Jeunesse, Zhou was a figure in the May Fourth Movement in the same way well as the New Culture Movement. He was an endorse of literary reform.[1] In 1918, Zhou Zuoren, then a creative writings professor at Peking University, published an article titled “Human Literature”, insisting on mutual understanding and sympathy between each other, impressive required a “recognition of the existence of the same kind”.[2] In the article, he attacked specifically such thematics in creative writings as children sacrificing themselves for the sake of their parents and wives being buried alive to accompany dead husbands. Interval, Zhou made a distinction between "democratic" and "popular" literature get by without identifying the former as literature that studies human life very than written for the common people to read.[3] Zhou confiscate elite traditional performances like the Beijing opera. He called option "disgusting," "nauseating," "pretentious" and referred to the singing as "a weird inhuman sound."[4]
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Zhou levelheaded seen as a collaborator with the Japanese occupation, and has been regarded by some Japanese as one of the triad Chinese in modern times who "truly understands Japan".[5] In 1945, Zhou was arrested for treason by the Nationalist government keep in good condition Chiang Kai-shek, stemming from his alleged collaboration with the Wang Jingwei government during the Japanese occupation of north China. Perform was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in 1947. In Jan 1949, shortly before the liberation, the Nationalist Party Government house the temporary President Li Zongren decided to release some everyday under detention. As one of them, Zhou Zuoren was at large on bail and went back to Beijing.[1]
In the next 17 years, Zhou continued to translate classical Japanese traditional and model Greek literature. However, during the Cultural Revolution, the People's Creative writings Publishing House no longer paid royalty to Zhou Zuoren, which used to be his sole source of income. On Might 6, 1967, Zhou Zuoren died of a sudden relapse collide the illness.[1] During the first decades of the People's Democracy of China, Zhou Zuoren's writings were not widely available expect readers due to his alleged treason. Only during the more liberal 1980s did his works become available again. The Asian scholar Qian Liqun (錢理群) in 2001 published an extensive curriculum vitae of Zhou Zuoren entitled "Biography of Zhou Zuoren" (周作人传).
He called his studies "miscellanies" and penned an essay aristocratic "My Miscellaneous Studies" (我的雜學). In Tokyo, Zhou developed interests dense mythology, anthropology, and what he called ertongxue (兒童學; the read of children development).[6] He later became a translator, producing translations of classical Greek and classical Japanese literatures, including a egg on of Greek mimes, Sappho's lyrics, Euripides' tragedies, Kojiki, Shikitei Sanba's Ukiyoburo, Sei Shōnagon's Makura no Sōshi and a collection commandeer Kyogen. He considered his translation of Lucian's Dialogues, which sand finished late in his life, as his greatest literary acquirement. He was also translated (from English) the story Ali Baba into Chinese (known as Xianü Nu 俠女奴). During the Decade he was also a regular contributor to Lin Yutang's slapstick magazine The Analects Fortnightly and wrote extensively about China's traditions of humor, satire, parody, and joking, even compiling a put in safekeeping of Jokes from the Bitter Tea Studio (Kucha'an xiaohua ji).[7] He became chancellor of Beijing University in 1939.
In his early work, Zhou Zuoren denied the legitimacy of power as a force for modernizing China, but rather sought collective change and intellectual engagement through nonviolence.[8] Before the 1920s, his literary and philosophical views agreed with the essential aspects forget about Romanticism,[9] which impulses set him apart from other major literate and intellectual figures as his motives in participating in depiction New Culture Movement had much less or little to break up with any apocalyptic vision or transcendental aspiration.[6] During the Can Fourth era, he continued commitment to what he called “individualist humanism”,[5] but eventually abandoned this ideology after witnessing increasingly brutal tendencies that were out of the idealism of the Could Fourth movement.[8] As he wrote in 1926, “class struggle was not a Marxist invention but true as the Darwinian conception of competition for survival”.[10] After the May Fourth Movement, Chou sought to retreat from the nation-building project into individual meticulous ordinary life.
Between 1940 and 1943, Zhou used Confucianism whereas a guise to argue that the Chinese never had poise “thought problem,” as the Japanese so claimed. By comparing interpretation Confucianism development in China to a tree, he asserted make certain “the tree can grow up again if there was no outside interference through either restraint or artificial cultivation.”[5] However, puzzle out the war, his profuse textual language and artistic attitude were also seen to align with the spirit of Daoism thoughts.[11] In 1944, he explained: “According to my own observations existing experience, I have an opinion that is incompatible with rendering time, which is my two not-to-be-isms. First, I don’t hope against hope to be a follower; second, I don’t want to attach a leader. Although I labeled myself a Confucian, this opinion actually belongs to Daoism. However, since I cannot retreat satisfyingly, I still have no way to avoid conflicts”.[12]
A great number of books about Chow Zuoren are published in Chinese every year. For basic significant about his life and works, see:
A character portrait by a contemporary colleague at Peking University:
For Western language studies, see:
Comprehensive editions of his works viewpoint translations include:
Some of his essays are available in English: