As a rich boy born in a famous business family and deeply influenced by an aristocratic school like Cambridge, Xu Zhimo's ideological character is a complex contradiction. Inspired by the May 4th New Culture, yearning for Western culture, intensive and frequent exchanges between China and the West, lively personality and extensive social life have created Xu Zhimo's broad vision of world culture. His personality is simple, passionate and impulsive, and his thoughts are complex and changeable. He is persistent in his pursuit of ideals, often disappointed and miserable, but he always maintains a happy tone. Zhu Ziqing once said that Xu Zhimo "is the water of life that jumps and splashes day and night" [1], and he also described his character in this way: "The activities of my mind are impulsive, which can be said to be spasmodic" (fallen leaves). It is precisely because of the simplicity and transparency of Xu Zhimo's personality that his contradictory and complex thoughts are reflected in his creation to varying degrees, and this contradiction and complexity also make his poems form the crystallization of polyhedron.

Xu Zhimo has a strong national consciousness and patriotic enthusiasm. Many of his works are permeated with anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism, anti-warlord and the idea of shouting for the oppressed. In the face of the miserable life of the people at the bottom of the dark and decadent society, the poet shouted to open "a broad and rough voice and sing a barbaric, bold and frightening new song", encouraging readers to "go to the folk and listen to the groans of the old, sick, poor, disabled, oppressed, bored, servile, timid, ugly, guilty and suicidal" (. But Xu Zhimo is essentially an individualist and a humanist. He believes that the fundamental reason for the development of human society lies in human spirit. His ideal is the free development of the individual soul to the maximum extent. He claims to be an "uneducated individualist", "only know the individual, only know the individual clearly, only trust the individual", [2] and constantly sing for freedom, love and beauty.

He is crazy and persistent about his ideals, but his thoughts are often contradictory and chaotic. Especially when the harsh reality is in sharp opposition to the rosy ideal, he is disappointed, resentful and sad, and the pain of disappointment is particularly strong because of his enthusiasm for the ideal and the depth of love. He can't find a way out, and he doesn't know which direction the wind is blowing. He once praised Lenin's spirit, but claimed that he didn't want his theory to spread. I am afraid of him "; He once hailed the red flag of the Winter Palace, calling it a great symbol, "representing the greatest period in human history" and "setting an example for human beings to try bravely" (fallen leaves), and then criticized the October Revolution as "the most tragic and painful fact in human history" [3]. This makes him always more sympathetic than critical, more sad than angry, more sad than shouting, more depressed than excited, and his poems are mostly "unconventional".

Xu Zhimo's complicated and serious artistic practice has created a fascinating artistic miracle. Complex theme expression, strong emotional expression, diverse forms of attempts, gorgeous rhetoric and flexible rhythm are the style characteristics of Xu Zhimo's poetry creation. In his ten-year creative process, this artistic style has experienced a process of development and evolution. The artistic conception of his poems has experienced a complex and pluralistic change from early harmony, simplicity, high spirits and optimism to the middle period. Disappointment, anger and depression are getting stronger and stronger, and confidence is beginning to waver. In the contest between hope and despair, contradiction and hesitation became the characteristics of this period. Later, the poet's ideals and confidence tended to collapse and eventually fell into the abyss of depression. Desolation, despair, loneliness, fear, inferiority and sense of crisis, religious mystery and fatalism combine into a cold atmosphere. In the process of seeking liberation, Xu Zhimo actually completed the transformation of his poetic mood from the vitality of romanticism to the western "end of the century" and even modernist temperament. In this poetic world from warm to cold and from spring to cold, the only theme that runs through these three periods is to praise beauty. Relatively speaking, poems expressing natural beauty mostly come from the first two stages; Love poems focus on the third stage. At the same time, the poet's vision changed from the outside to the inside with the change of emotion, that is, from his early vision of the vast world to his later self-observation and appreciation. From the perspective of poetic art, he experienced a rigorous and diverse exploration of poetic forms from the early "overflow of irrelevant emotions" to the middle and late period, and created a number of classic works, such as Xi Annola, Searching for Stars, Biekang Bridge and Wandering in the Clouds, which integrated poetic sentiment, painting, phonology and architectural beauty.

Xu Zhimo's contribution to new literature is also reflected in his literary activities. As a representative writer and "leader" of the Crescent Poetry School, Xu Zhimo's creation and influence have always been linked with the Crescent Poetry School. The formation and demise of the crescent school is closely related to him. He participated in the activities of the whole crescent school, and his creation reflected the distinctive characteristics of the crescent school.

First of all, it took about ten years from the establishment of Crescent Society to the gradual formation of a literary school-Crescent School, in which Xu Zhimo always played an important core role. He is the core member of the early Crescent Poetry School and the main banner of the later Crescent Poetry School. 1923 In the spring, Xu Zhimo founded the Crescent Club in Beijing shortly after his return from England. The club organizes colleagues to have dinner, write scripts, sing poems and draw pictures, and hold annual meetings and lantern festivals on holidays. Out of reverence for the Indian poet Tagore, Xu Zhimo borrowed the name of one of his poems and proposed to use the word "Crescent Society" as the name of the society, hence the name Crescent Society. However, before 1925, Crescent Society was still a salon group. 1926 The establishment of Poetry Magazine and its author's efforts in China's new metrical poetry creation and discussion of poetry skills marked the formation of Crescent Poetry School. Except for the third and fourth issues edited by Wen Yiduo and the fifth issue edited by Rao Mengkan, all the other issues were edited by Xu Zhimo, and the poems published at the beginning and end were also written by Xu Zhimo. 1in the spring of 927, some members of crescent society gathered in Shanghai due to political changes and other reasons. With the active efforts of Xu Zhimo, he and writers such as Wen Yiduo, Hu Shi, Shao, Liang Shiqiu and Yu Shangyuan founded the Crescent School Bookstore, and the Crescent School also entered its later stage. 1In March, 928, Xu Zhimo taught in Guanghua, Soochow, Daxia University and other schools, and founded Crescent Monthly. "New Moon" ended in June 1933, with 4 volumes and 43 issues published. It not only published the works of members of the Crescent School, but also published the works of non-Crescent School such as Yu Dafu, Ba Jin, Ding Ling and Hu Yepin. Although the members of the late Crescent School were different, the tradition of writing poems and discussing new poems continued. 193165438+1October 20th, Xu Zhimo, Chen, Shao, etc. Founded a quarterly poetry magazine and published four issues. In September of the same year, Chen selected 80 new poems by 18 poets from Poem Carving, Crescent Moon and Poetry Publication, and compiled them into Selected Poems of Crescent Moon, from which the basic features and characteristics of Crescent Moon Poetry School were roughly seen. Less than two years after Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash, the activities of the whole crescent school were suspended with the publication of New Moon.

Secondly, Xu Zhimo not only actively advocated in theory, but also tried to practice the creative pursuit of Crescent Poetry School in his creation. Since Guo Moruo's Goddess completely broke the traditional poetic form and paved the way for the development of new poetry, it is increasingly urgent to establish new artistic forms and aesthetic principles, which will make new poetry "standardized" and "make the content and form of poetry show the power of beauty and become a perfect art" [4]. Therefore, the crescent poets put forward the aesthetic principle of "rational control of emotion" and the conception of the form of metrical poetry.

1926, Wen Yiduo put forward the famous metrical theory of new poetry, including "the beauty of music (syllables)", "the beauty of painting (words)" and "the beauty of architecture (symmetry of knots and uniformity of sentences)" [5], which is recognized as the symbol of the characteristics of crescent poetry. Xu Zhimo has great respect for Wen Yiduo. In the preface of Tiger Collection, he even frankly admitted to the world: "In the past five or six years, several of our friends who wrote poems have been influenced by the author of Dead Water", and in Poetry magazine, he also claimed that "a perfect body is the only expression of a perfect spirit" and poets should "strive to create suitable poems. At the same time, Wen Yiduo's metrical theory and creative bias are partially revised. He believes that "the words in a poem are the shape of the body, the syllables are the blood, and the' poetic sentiment' or the original poem is the beating of the heart, with which the blood can flow", while "the result of only talking about appearances is meaningless, even unconscious formalism" [6], insisting on the perfect unity of form and content.

In poetry creation, on the one hand, Xu Zhimo continues the style exploration that "Zhimo Poetry" has begun. "Marshal" and "Crime and Punishment (II)" introduce dramatic dialogues and monologues, and express the unique fate and feelings of the characters in the vernacular dialect that conforms to their identity, thus reflecting the misfortune of the lower classes under the rule of warlords. On the other hand, I tried to restrain the early emotion of "flash floods, rushing in all directions", consciously changed my emotional expression, and tried to combine emotional expression with the creation of images, the control of rhythm and the choice of phonology in harmony to create a nearly perfect lyric chapter like Farewell to Cambridge.

Zhu Ziqing once said: "Modern poets in China should first admire Xu Zhimo and Guo Moruo", [7] But because Xu Zhimo's poems are so famous, people often despise his prose achievements. In fact, many contemporary writers, such as Zhou Zuoren, Shen Congwen, Liang Shiqiu and Yang Zhensheng, spoke highly of Xu Zhimo's prose. Zhou Zuoren collected the most works of Xu Zhimo when compiling the prose collection of China New Literature Series. He classified Xu Zhimo's prose as "elegant and crisp" and "like a duck to water", and thought that it was characterized by adding classical Chinese, dialects and Europeanized elements to the vernacular, thus making the words of those who led the car to sell pulp become vivid articles, which was a great contribution only in terms of style. Xu Zhimo's prose is characterized by frankness, without any affectation and affectation in emotion and expression. Even if it is considered shameful according to custom, he will say it directly in the article. At the same time, his imagination is far beyond the shackles, his words are gorgeous and elegant, and his phonology is full of rhythm and melody, which is unique in modern literary circles. According to the content, his prose can be divided into five categories: lyrical description of scenery, description of idols and their creation, self-analysis, discussion of current politics and mourning for relatives and friends. These five types of prose have their own characteristics, and the first type can best reflect the characteristics of their prose. All these prose words, to some extent, are another expression of his poetic feelings. Yang Zhensheng described the characteristics of Xu Zhimo's prose like this: "How vivid the words are! That color is really' too strong to melt'! Lenovo's richness, life's enrichment! Especially his attitude and tone, light and clear enough, naughty and clever! And that strength is really enough. You will never see slack in this article. Always like the surge of Xia Yun, the murmur of spring! " . [8]

Xu Zhimo's short life left a unique legacy for China's new literature. With a pure and transparent childlike innocence, he expressed his persistent love for nature, his eager pursuit of freedom, beauty and love, his sincere worship of life, his understanding of the joys and sorrows of the world, his praise and singing of the soul, and his rich and beautiful poetic language, rigorous and diverse poetic forms, distant and implicit poetic artistic conception and fantastic and uninhibited poetic imagination expressed the beautiful feelings of several generations of readers. Although Xu Zhimo died unexpectedly early, his poetic art as a whole has not yet reached a perfect state, but his bold and diverse exploration spirit and artistic achievements in poetry have played an irreplaceable role in the history of modern new poetry in China.