Lao She's major works include: Camel Xiangzi, Zhao Ziri, Lao Zhang's Philosophy, Four Generations under One Family, Two Horses, Xiaopo's Birthday, Divorce, A Tale of Cat City, Under the Red Flag, Remnant Fog, Fang's Pearl and Face Problems. Reportage "Unknown Highland" is well-known, with novellas "Crescent Moon", "My Life" and "Export", and short story collections such as Market, Sakura Sea Collection, Mussel Algae Collection, Train Collection, Anemia Collection and Lao She's Works Collection (16 volume).
19 18 Graduated from Beijing Normal University, principal of Beijiao Primary School, student counselor. The ideological trend of democracy, science and personality liberation aroused by the May 4th New Culture Movement awakened him from the life creed of "running a primary school seriously, respectfully serving his mother, getting married and having children properly". The prosperity of the literary revolution made him "obsessed with new literature and art", thus starting a new starting point in his life and career.
From 65438 to 0924, Lao She went to the Oriental College of London University to teach Chinese and China literature. Since 1925, three novels have been written one after another: Lao Zhang's Philosophy vividly exposes the smoky educational circle; Zhao Ziyue's flogging edge points to the young students who praise the new school, but they are actually intoxicated; The protagonist of Two Horses is a Beijinger living in Britain. Ironically, it is still the abnormal mentality of "leaving the nest" cultivated in the soil of feudal small-scale production society. They all use crisp Beijing spoken language and humorous language to render the folk customs of Beijing, and through the analysis of the national psychology of conservatism and stealing peace, they express their worries about the fate of the motherland, showing their unique artistic personality and ideological perspective. After the three works were serialized in Novel Monthly, they attracted the attention of literary circles.
1926 Lao She joined the Literature Research Association. /kloc-in the summer of 0/929, he returned to China via Europe and Asia. During my stay in Singapore, I was inspired by the rising demand for national liberation and created a novella "Xiaopo's Birthday" reflecting the awakening of the oppressed nation. 1930 July to present, teaching in cheeloo university. /kloc-in the autumn of 0/934, he was employed as a professor at Qingdao Shandong University. These two universities have successively offered courses such as literature introduction, foreign literature history, European literature trend of thought, novel practice and so on. Continue to engage in creation after school. Following the artistic orientation of the original works, as well as novels such as Divorce and Biography of Niu Tianci, are full of life interest and comedy effect. Compared with his early works, the description is from shallow to deep, and the unique artistic style of humorous writer, custom painter of Beijing's human feelings, performer and critic of civil society is quite mature. Facing the increasingly severe social reality, there are two new trends in writing: First, the growing concern for national affairs has inspired writing. For example, stimulated by the May 3rd massacre committed by the Japanese invaders, he wrote Daming Lake, and the September 18th Incident made him "disappointed with national affairs", so the fable novel Cat City came out. First, pay more attention to the sufferings of the urban poor and take this as the main description object. "Crescent Moon" describes that the mother and daughter have been prostitutes for two generations, and "My Life" tells the rough experience of the lower-level police. In Camel Xiangzi, the personal destruction of Xiangzi who came from the countryside to the city to pull a rickshaw wrote a sad social tragedy. Introducing the dark life at the bottom of the city into the artistic world of modern literature is a great achievement of Lao She.
Camel Xiangzi is an important work in the history of modern literature of himself and China. He began to write short stories in the early 1930s, and his works include Fair, Sakura Sea Collection, Mussel Algae Collection and so on. Among them, such as the Liu Family Courtyard, taking office, time-honored brands, broken soul guns, etc., are elegant, exquisite and complete, and are rare masterpieces.
After the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he went to Wuhan alone on the eve of the fall of 1937+0 1 Jinan. 1In March, 938, he joined the All-China Anti-Enemy Association of Literary and Art Circles and served as the director of the General Affairs Department. During the eight-year anti-Japanese war, he made many contributions to the unity of literary and art circles and the anti-Japanese war. Most of his works during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period were aimed at directly serving the national liberation. At the beginning of the war, he enthusiastically advocated popular literature and art, and wrote and publicized small works such as anti-Japanese drums, cross talks and pendants for artists to sing. Later, he turned to drama creation which was directly publicized to the masses, and created more than one script 10, such as Remnant Fog, Zhang Zizhong and Supreme Realm, praising national integrity, commending patriots and criticizing social abuses that were not conducive to unity and resistance to Japan, which played a positive propaganda role at that time. From 1944, I entered the creation of the novel Four Generations, and returned to the familiar Beijing civil society and the humorous and satirical art I am good at. The novel describes the inner conflict of ordinary people who are deeply bound by traditional ideas at the critical moment of national life and death, the awakening and struggle arising from suffering, and naturally there are negative escapes and shameless depravity. Four generations under one roof is his masterpiece and an important literary achievement during the Anti-Japanese War. 1March, 946, Lao She gave lectures in the United States at the invitation of the State Council. After the expiration of one year, he continued to live in the United States, engaged in creation and translated his works into English.
After learning that People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded, Lao She immediately set off for home. He was very excited about the new atmosphere of the new society, and soon published the drama "Square Pearl" with the theme of artist's life. 195 1 At the beginning of the year, the drama Longxugou was staged and was a great success. Through the joys and sorrows of several families in the complex, the script shows the great changes that are taking place in Beijing and the urban poor who have experienced suffering. This is an ode to New China. Longxugou is a new milestone in Lao She's creation, so it won the honorary title of People's Artist. From 1950s to 1960s, he held various positions in literature and art, politics, society and foreign cultural exchanges, but he still worked hard to create. His works are mainly dramas, such as Stone, Looking at Chang 'an in the West, The Red Chamber, and The Salesgirl. It successfully depicts the spiritual journey of Beijing residents to bid farewell to their old lives and welcome the new era. He also wrote the essay I Love New Beijing. Since the second half of 1950s, Lao She's plays Teahouse, Boxer Rebellion (also known as Shenquan) and Under the Red Flag (unfinished) have turned to describe the historical situation of modern Beijing. Teahouse takes a teahouse as the stage, and unfolds the life scenes and historical trends of three times: the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 in the late Qing Dynasty, the occupation of Beiyang warlords in the early Republic of China, and the eve of the collapse of the Kuomintang regime. It wrote about the decline of old China and revealed the truth that we must find another way out. Lao She's dramatic art made a great breakthrough in this play. Teahouse is the most famous play on the stage of contemporary China drama. After Camel Xiangzi, he once again won an international reputation for Lao She.
In his creative career of more than 40 years, Lao She has made great progress and breakthrough in thought and art, diligently writing and tirelessly dabbling in various fields of literary creation. He is a prolific writer, who wrote more than 65,438+0,000 works in his life. Persecuted at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution,1threw himself into the water at Taiping Lake in Beijing on August 24th, 966.
Excerpt from: China Theatre (Arranged by Wu Tong Xinyu)