Yao Yao said, "Guo Moruo is the most qualified person to write historical plays". What does that mean?

Guo Moruo "is the most successful scholar in the study of China's new history and the corresponding writer of new literature, so he is also the most qualified person to write historical dramas."

Look at his achievements:

Guo Moruo's works in new poems, historical dramas, essays and novels are very rich. In particular, the creation of new poems and historical dramas has made great creative contributions to the development of China's new literature. His first collection of poems, Goddess, not only established the image of Guo Moruo as an outstanding romantic poet, but also became a monument to the maturity of China's new poetry.

Goddess was released in August of 192 1. Before that, there were many people who wrote new poems in China, and there were also new poetry collections. However, many new poems focus on describing real life, not imagination, but reasoning, lacking fragrance and aftertaste, with a strong old flavor in form. "Most authors can't get rid of the tone of old poems in an anxious way" (Zhu Ziqing: Introduction to China's New Literature Series Poems). However, Goddess, with its brand-new ideological content, unrestrained free verse style and romantic artistic style, has created a new poetic style for China's modern poetry and a new world for free verse.

In addition to the preface poems, the goddess also collected 56 poems, including those from 19 16 to 192 1 year. In the poems before the May 4th Movement, there were personal and national sorrows in the poet's heart, and the poetic style was mournful and low. After the May 4th Movement, sturm und drang's spirit of the times brought light and hope to the poet, and his poetic style became bold. Patriotism is the poetic soul of Goddess, and Guo Moruo's ardent praise for the motherland and ardent expectation for the rise of the Chinese nation after the May 4th Movement are the best poems dedicated to the May 4th Movement. He said: "In my mind, China after the May 4th Movement is like a very handsome and enterprising girl. She is like my lover. " (Ten years of creation) The poet misses his new motherland-his beloved "girl" (coal in the furnace), and his heart is like fire. He cordially greeted the young motherland, new compatriots, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, Russia and the great pioneers, and called on people: wake up! Mesame！ Come and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime morning (good morning). Phoenix nirvana is the masterpiece of Guo Moruo's new poems. This is a solemn ode to the times, a poem full of the spirit of complete rebellion and longing for light. The poet endowed Phoenix with great symbolic significance; Phoenix self-immolation symbolizes the complete denial of the old world; The rebirth of Phoenix symbolizes the rebirth of the ancient Chinese nation and a generation of young people in the fire.

Under the sunshine of the October Revolution, Guo Moruo admired the Soviet Republic led by Lenin and "gave birth to the requirement of further understanding this new society" (Introduction to Selected Works of Guo Moruo). In the preface to Goddess, he declared that he was "a proletarian" and "willing to be a communist". In Ode to Gangsters, he praised all "gangsters at the end of the social revolution" and shouted long live Lenin. The poet praised the workers and peasants who have benefited mankind on earth, calling them "Prometheus of all mankind" and "Nanny of all mankind". The poet said that he would learn from the workers and peasants and continue to work to repay the kindness of the earth ("Earth, my mother! 》)。 These poems reflect some socialist factors in the author's thoughts, and bring a spark of revolutionary idealism to the whole poem.

Guo Moruo is a romantic poet who emphasizes subjective lyricism. Many articles in Goddess have shaped the lyrical image of the self who strongly pursues the liberation of personality and combines with everything. During the May 4th Movement, Guo Moruo was not the only poet who flaunted his personality and sang his own praises, but he was different from other poets. In his poems, he rebelled against all established moral concepts and traditional forces, respected himself and advocated creation. In old China, where the feudal patriarchal clan system completely stifled his personality and imprisoned people's thoughts, it can be said that he was a revolution summoned with all his strength when he was living in poverty, filled with positive spirit and flying vigor. At this time, Guo Moruo was fascinated by the pantheism worldview and had deep feelings for nature. He praised mountains and seas, the sun, the moon and the stars, clouds, snow and rain, endowed nature with life, realized the harmonious unity between man and nature, and expressed his good expectations for social life. But when his ideal is disillusioned, he will return to nature and seek a "nothing" world, which naturally becomes his escape.

After Goddess, Guo Moruo's second collection of poems, Starry Sky, was published in 1923. He believes that this is "some microwaves after the ebb tide, even a dead silence" and "there is no endogenous emotion like the volcanic eruption in the goddess era" (preface to My Poetry). In the poem Dedication, the poet described himself as a "wild goose with an arrow" and a "wounded soldier" and felt "deeply depressed" lying on the battlefield. The poet is tired and wants to find a paradise where he can sleep peacefully. He wants to drink water from the handle of the big dipper. "Drink all the wine in Tianhe and get drunk for a long time" (starry sky). Poets sometimes yearn for "free and pure primitive people", praise lonely shouyangshan, and whisper "Ah, Cong, exquisite, but everything is a dream, but everything is empty" (the second son of the solitary bamboo king). These poems reveal strong nihilism. Although Starry Sky still maintains the artistic style of the poet's romanticism, and some poems still reveal the poet's active exploration and pursuit of light, the passionate poetry of Goddess has declined, the passionate pursuit of romantic ideals has faded, and the magical and wonderful poetic meaning is rare. Compared with Goddess, Starry Sky tends to be mature in artistic skills, rigorous in structure, neat in poetic lines and more concise and implicit in language. Some lyric poems are touching and elegant.

The poetry collection "Thousand Cats" was published in 1928. Except the preface poem in 1928, there are 22 poems from 192 1 to 1924. It reflects the changes of the author's thoughts and emotions. The poet tried to get rid of the negative influence of pantheism and face up to the injustice of the world. Some poems vividly depict the bright future of the workers' and peasants' revolution, and the poet hopes that the China Revolution "making waves" can "overthrow all the old conflicts in Chen Gen, and in addition, it can spit out a ray of new light in human history" (Dialogue between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River). In "The Sun Has Passed" written in memory of Lenin's death, the poet, with deep feelings, expressed that he would continue to do the work of "expelling darkness and cleaning up demons" along Lenin's road with "sincere torch fire". Some of Qian Mao's poems are vague and have conceptual problems. Guo Moruo admits that Qian Mao is not brilliant, but it has certain historical significance "(Before the Sea Left Shanghai).

1925 After writing the love poem "Bottle", Guo Moruo has not written a poem for nearly three years. He "stopped the pure literary and artistic activities of the early creative society and began to have a deep understanding of dialectical materialism" (Appendicitis). The poetry collection Rehabilitation was written by the author 1927 1 1. He took refuge in Shanghai after his initial recovery from a serious illness. Published in March 1928. This is the declaration of a revolutionary soldier's poem "Keep a thorough attitude and a red will" in the days of white terror. The poet publicly declared that his poems belonged to the proletariat. He wants to shout for the return of the proletarian revolutionary storm (the declaration of poetry). These "noisy" battle poems mark the poet's footsteps and great efforts in the Northern Expedition during the first revolutionary civil war, and show the awakening and strength of workers and peasants. In the historical atmosphere of "everything in front of us is white", it has played a role in inspiring morale and fighting against countercurrent. In the process of realizing the transformation of world outlook, Guo Moruo criticized and denied the romantic creative method, and said that he would resolutely move from the romantic tendency of the goddess era to realism. However, the collection of poems, such as The Restoration and the Later Collection of Wars, and The Collection of Lost Songs, shows that reluctantly changing the artistic style is not good for his creation, and its objective effect is that the poet has lowered his aesthetic requirements for poetry and his works have conceptual problems.

Guo Moruo is a famous poet, but he also wrote many novels. From 19 19, 1 1 published his first novel Mound Mourning in Beijing New China to 1947, 1, he published Laughter in the Underground and wrote nearly 40 short stories. These novels can be roughly divided into "novels around us" and "commissioned novels". "The novels around him are very similar to his poems, and the subjective burning strongly attracts readers" (Zheng's Introduction to Three Novels of China's New Literature Series). Wandering Trilogy is the representative work of Guo Moruo's autobiographical novels. These "novels around us" seem to be written by letters and pens, and they are smooth, loose in structure and not chewy. But in the hero's frank confession, the author's passionate feelings excited the readers at that time. The collection of historical novels was published in 1936, including six short stories of 1935 and 1936, such as Eating by Confucius. These novels are permeated with the spirit of historical criticism and have obvious realistic allegory. Sima Qian's fury evolved from Sima Qian's Letter to Ren An into a novel, which can best show Guo Moruo's spiritual world when he fled to Japan. When Guo Moruo lost his freedom of action, he still encouraged himself to be faithful and devoted himself to the study of history, and praised Sima Qian's broad-minded writing spirit because of humiliation, that is, to consciously study Sima Qian's character and literature. These historical novels have a strong subjective color of the author, casting their thoughts, feelings and aesthetic ideals on the ancients, and maintaining the romantic artistic style of the author.

In addition, Guo Moruo's biographical literature is well received by readers, such as My Childhood, Before and After Anyway, Black Cat, Ten Years of Creation, The Road to the Northern Expedition, Hongbo Qu and so on. , describes the author's personal life experience, cultural and academic activities and social and political activities in the broad and complicated social life background, and truly records the changes of Guo Moruo. These biographical works are precious documents that he left for later generations to study the history of modern cultural thought in China, and also broaden the road for the development of modern biographical literature in China.

The historical drama created by Guo Moruo during the Anti-Japanese War is the second peak on his literary road after Goddess. Guo Moruo "is the most successful scholar in the study of China's new history and an outstanding writer of new literature, so he is also the most qualified person to write historical dramas" (Draft of New Literature History in China, Yao Yao, Volume II). His six plays, Flowers of Tang Di, Qu Yuan, Tiger Symbol, Courtesy, Peacock Gallbladder and Nanguan Grass, have opened up a brand-new road in the field of historical drama.

Paying attention to the practical significance and social effect of historical drama creation is Guo Moruo's consistent view of historical drama. As early as the early 1920s, he said, "I want to borrow the bones of the ancients and boast all my life." However, in his early historical dramas, he only used the shadow of history to gallop his own creation, but did not deeply understand and describe the spiritual outlook of the ancients in strict accordance with historical documents. Later, Guo Moruo used historical materialism to emphasize that writers should study and be familiar with history. "Historical dramatists must be research authorities within the subject matter they deal with" and "excellent historical dramatists must be excellent historians" (history, historical drama and reality), so his creative intention to irrigate the reality of historical drama is reliable. The representative work Qu Yuan was the most influential work in the anti-Japanese democratic movement at that time. It is a new historical drama that gives a new explanation to history from the viewpoint of historical materialism and exerts the fighting power of "making the past serve the present". In the early 1940s, the author lived in Chongqing ruled by the Kuomintang. He "saw many tragedies of the times", so he decided to "revive the anger of this era in Qu Yuan's era" and "use Qu Yuan's era to symbolize our present era" (preface to the Russian translation of Qu Yuan's Historical Drama). The script summarizes the tragic life of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet of Chu State during the Warring States Period, through his life and struggle. At the end of the script, Qu Yuan left Hanbei and continued to fight against the dark forces, showing the author's resentment against the dark world and his vision for a bright future. In the historical drama "Khufu" created by Historical Records Biography of Wei Gongzi, the hero Xin is no longer a "virtuous son" of a virtuous corporal, and his "generosity" is endowed with positive ideological content. Through the typical plot of "stealing symbols to save Zhao", he showed his patriotism, unity with the people, foresight and courage to take responsibility. The image of Ruji is particularly prominent and distinct in the play. Ruji is a knowledgeable, loyal, virtuous and strong woman. She opposed the tyranny of the king of Qin, advocated joint resistance to Qin and supported Xin's political views. Her symbol of theft and suicide constitutes a heroic historical tragedy. Although these plays ended in tragedy, they abandoned the sadness, pessimism and despair that are common in tragic literature, and injected more into the author's completely rebellious spirit. Its purpose is to call on the people to fight. There are severe realities in historical themes, trying to write the essential historical spirit, but aiming at reality, giving warmth and hope to real life, which is obviously the embodiment of Guo Moruo's romantic creation method.

Guo Moruo's historical plays have formed his unique artistic style, which is bold, passionate and strongly romantic. His plays are full of emotion, just like his passionate poems. His plays read like lyric prose poems, fresh and magnificent, rippling with feelings. He never took an objective description attitude when shaping the image of the ancients. Without violating the specific history and class content of the characters, he often injects more subjectivity into historical figures and melts his thoughts, feelings and life experiences into artistic images.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Guo Moruo's "Cai Wenji and Wu Zetian" generally retained his previous style of historical drama creation, adhered to the romantic creation method, and had the author's own unique artistic personality. In addition, the author also made a new and beneficial exploration on how historical drama can serve socialism. The historical drama "Cai Wenji" tells the story of Wen Xi's revival of Han Dynasty, focusing on Cao Cao's great cause of recruiting talents and vigorously cultivating culture for the development of national culture after the reunification of the north, and also praises Cai Wenji's great wish to leave his descendants in order to inherit his father's footsteps and make up his mind to write "Continued Han Dynasty". Cai Wenji's artistic image is full of Guo Moruo's life and tears. The author said that Cai Wenji was him, and he wrote it according to himself. "I wrote this play to melt my own experience", "There are many things about my feelings and my life" (preface to Cai Wenji). The script uses Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia to express the sad experience and ambivalence on the way back to Han Dynasty, which not only strengthens the historical atmosphere of the drama, but also adds a strong lyrical color to the drama. In the historical drama Wu Zetian, Guo Moruo gave a new explanation and exposition of historical figures and established facts according to his own historical view and aesthetic view, which made the main characters in the play appear with a new look and posture. The script centers on the Xu Jingye mutiny and arranges characters and plots. The location is limited to Luoyang, and the time is limited to the six years from the first year of the hanging furnace (679) to the first year of Guangzhai (684). Wu Zetian is written as a female ruler with political ideals and ambitions, wise and decisive, and dedicated to assisting the emperor in managing state affairs. Guo Moruo said that Wu Zetian was the queen of the feudal dynasty and was an emperor. "She is not a person without faults, especially in her later years, and her faults are hard to hide"; But "as a female ruler, she struggled with the rich and nobles all her life." Without the support of the people, she can't win and her regime can't be consolidated "("How can I write "Wu Zetian"? 》)。 In order to reverse Wu Zetian's conviction, the author reasonably understands the psychology of characters and the psychology of the times, and boldly carries out some artistic imagination and fiction on the basis of taking into account the truth of historical essence. In these plays, according to the principle of historical materialism and his own research experience, he boldly made a new evaluation and described and shaped some historical figures. Especially for Cao Cao, it completely changed the image of Cao Cao on the stage for thousands of years. The main shortcoming of Guo Moruo's historical plays is that the characters' language is sometimes too modern, so some characters or plots give people a distorted feeling.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Guo Moruo's poems are considerable, but as the author himself admits, "many poems are good, but few poems". Most of these poems are improvised in line with political movements, production tasks or overseas visits, lacking strict conception and artistic tempering, and sometimes it is inevitable to conceptualize them. However, some poems still retain the charm of the goddess and show the unique artistic style of the poet's romanticism. For example, the poem "Camel" is based on real life, but it has poured into the poet's rich feelings. The poet enthusiastically praised the camel that guided travelers from darkness to dawn in the desert, and there was a strong atmosphere of revolutionary heroism and revolutionary idealism between the lines. In poems such as Ode to Xinhua, the poet eulogizes the establishment of a new China, expecting a new world of flowers blooming in China, and a new scene of a hundred flowers blooming in socialist literature. "From then on, the use of the meat cleaver will be more flexible, and the conductor will sprinkle unparalleled music."

Guo Moruo also wrote many old-style poems. Some poems are meaningful and left a deep impression on readers. For example,1955,65438+February, poems on visiting Japan 10, 1960, trip to Chongqing (16), Huangshan scenery (1964), water turning around, sleeping with bananas. Some of these old poems are good at graceful and restrained, some are famous for their boldness, some express the poet's feelings, and some focus on expressing the high spirits and majestic momentum of the people. His old-style poems dare to create boldly in the routine, which has both persistence and breakthrough, but some poems also have the problem of piling up slogans.

In terms of literary theory, Guo Moruo's Notes on Reading Poems with the Garden (196 1) not only criticized the feudal consciousness reflected in Yuan Mei's poetic theory, but also made many accurate expositions on the laws of literary creation, the characteristics of literature and the aesthetic consciousness of writers and artists, which enriched and developed Guo Moruo's early romantic poetic theory. Li Bai and Du Fu, written in the late 1960s, is Guo Moruo's last academic monograph. Guo Moruo's evaluation of Du Li is obviously subjective. Influenced by "taking class struggle as the key link" in the 1960s, the ancients were evaluated mechanically by the method of class analysis. Of course, emphasizing Li and restraining Du also reflects Guo Moruo's aesthetic taste and artistic tendency formed in his early years, and the author also puts forward some opinions worthy of academic attention.