Modern poet and famous red scholar Yu Pingbo
Yu Pingbo (8 January 1900 – 15 October 1990), formerly known as Yu Mingheng (俞明衡), was a Chinese poet. A native of Nandai Village (present-day Jinhuo Village, Qianyuan Town), an eastern suburb of Deqing, Huzhou, Zhejiang, he was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Essayist, red scholar, poet at the beginning of the New Literary Movement, one of the pioneers of Chinese vernacular poetry creation. Great-grandson of Qing Dynasty Master Yu Fan. Together with Hu Shi, he is known as the founder of the "New Red School".
Yu Pingbo graduated from Peking University in 1919 and later taught at Yenching University, Peking University, and Tsinghua University. He participated in the Chinese Revolutionary Democratic League, the Xinchao Society, the Literary Research Society, the Language Silk Society, and founded the monthly magazine "Poetry" with Zhu Ziqing and others. During the May Fourth New Culture Movement, Yu Pingbo responded positively, studied classical Chinese literature, and taught at famous universities. Yu Pingbo was one of the pioneers of the "New Red Studies", a ardent patriot and an intellectual with noble sentiments. He participated in literary groups such as the Xinchao Society, the Literary Research Society, and the Language Silk Society of Peking University, advocating the "popularization of poetry".
Yu Pingbo's main works include "The Dream of the Red Chamber Discernment" ("Dream of the Red Chamber Study"), "Winter Night", "Ancient Locust Bookhouse Question", "Ancient Locust Dream Encounter", "Reading Words Occasionally", "Qing Ci Interpretation", "Xi Huan", "Memory", "Snow Dynasty", "Yan Zhicao", "Miscellaneous Mix", "Miscellaneous Mixer Ii", "Ancient Locust Dream Encounter", "Yanjiao Collection", "Tang and Song Ci Selected Interpretation", "Yu Pingbo Complete Collection".
【Early life】On January 8, 1900, the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), Yu Pingbo was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. His father, Yu His Majesty, was also quite accomplished in the study of poetry, and Yu Pingbo was influenced by ancient culture since childhood, laying a solid foundation for old learning. When Yu Pingbo was three years old, his great-grandfather Yu Fan wrote a couplet to give him: cultivate the jade before the steps and revisit the heavenly flowers.
In the fourth year of the Republic of China (1915), Yu Pingbo entered Suzhou Pingjiang Middle School, and half a year later was admitted to the preparatory department of the Literature Department of National Peking University, which coincided with the period when the new cultural movement moved from rise to vigorous development. The young Yu Pingbo was also baptized by the May Fourth New Culture Movement. In the sixth year of the Republic of China (1917), Yu Pingbo and Xu Baotao, a hangzhou girl, formed a good relationship with Qin and Jin.
In May of the seventh year of the Republic of China (1918), Yu Pingbo's first new poem "Spring Water" was published together with Lu Xun's novel "Diary of a Madman" in "New Youth", becoming one of the pioneers in the creation of Chinese vernacular poetry. In the same year, he and his classmates Fu Sinian, Luo Jialun and others initiated the establishment of the New Wave Society. Later, he successively published poems such as "Winter Night". [2] In December of the eighth year of the Republic of China (1919), Yu Pingbo graduated from Peking University.
In the tenth year of the Republic of China (1921-1949), Yu Pingbo began to study "Dream of the Red Chamber". In January of the eleventh year of the Republic of China (1922), he and Zhu Ziqing, Zheng Zhenduo, Ye Shengtao and others founded the earliest poetry magazine since May Fourth, "Poetry". At the same time, he also studied classical literature, from the "Book of Poetry", "Chu Ci", down to the poetry of the Qing people, and taught courses such as Qing ci, opera, novels and selected chinese poetry masterpieces at Tsinghua University and Peking University.
In January 1949, Yu Pingbo, together with democrats in Beijing's cultural and educational circles, and 30 professors from Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and other institutions, expressed their written opinions on comprehensive peace, unanimously supporting the Communist Party of China. In 1952, Yu Pingbo, at the request of Wen Huaisha, revised "The Dream of the Red Chamber" into "Research on the Dream of the Red Chamber" in Shanghai, which was published by Tangdi Publishing House. At this time, Yu Pingbo had consciously applied Marxist-Leninist views and methods to study the Dream of the Red Chamber, but under the influence of inertia, the study of governance was still taking the road of examination.
Since 1954, he has successively published "Commentary on the Dream of the Red Chamber", "Eighty School Books of the Dream of the Red Chamber", and "Essay on Reading the Dream of the Red Chamber". In March, Yu Pingbo published "A Brief Discussion on the Dream of the Red Chamber" in the third issue of New Construction, stating his views. Li Xifan and Lan Ling read Yu Pingbo's "A Brief Treatise on the Dream of the Red Chamber" and disagreed. They began to write an article "On the Brief Theory of the Dream of the Red Chamber" and others, challenging Yu Pingbo, an authority on "New Red Studies". [3] In September of the same year, Yu Pingbo suffered from non-academic political criticism and long-term unfair treatment, but he did not give up his research on the Dream of the Red Chamber and published the Commentary on the Dream of the Red Chamber. On November 5 of the same year, the People's Daily published an article entitled "Purging Hu Shi's Reactionary Philosophical Legacy--Commenting on Yu Pingbo's Erroneous Views and Methods in Studying the Dream of the Red Chamber"" to criticize Yu Pingbo incorrectly.
After the great criticism, Yu Pingbo's interest in Kunqu became more and more intense. In 1956, Yu Pingbo was promoted to a first-class researcher at the Institute of Literature. In August of the same year, with the help of Ding Xilin, then vice minister of culture, and Wang Kunlun, vice mayor of Beijing, Yu Pingbo initiated the Kunqu Association for the second time, which was the Beijing Kunqu Study Society. The inaugural meeting of the Beijing Kunqu Study Society was held in Laojuntang, Yu Pingbo's home, and he personally drafted the Constitution and the Convention for the Same Period. The most influential thing about the music club is the adaptation and rehearsal of "Peony Pavilion". Yu Pingbo and his disciples carefully sorted out and edited, so that this masterpiece got rid of the lengthy structure and restored its stage life in the form of a whole play.
On October 2, 1958, an audition of "Peony Pavilion" was performed in Beijing to commemorate the 340th anniversary of Tang Xianzu's death, and Premier Zhou Enlai personally watched the performance. At the same time, Yu Pingbo published "Dream of the Red Chamber Eighty Times SchoolBook".
During the ten years of turmoil, although Yu Pingbo was also treated unfairly by raiding his home and going to the countryside for reform, it is fortunate that Yu Pingbo and his wife Xu Baotao relied on each other and stubbornly lived in adversity. In November 1969, two elderly people in their seventies were forced to work at a cadre school in Henan, forming a deep friendship with local farmers.
In April 1981, he wrote the preface to the "Zhenfei Qu Score" written by the famous Beijing-Kunming artist Yu Zhenfei, which incisively defined the "water mill tune" and its source stream.
On January 20, 1986, the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences held a celebration party for the 65th anniversary of Yu Pingbo's academic activities. The celebration was held in the small auditorium of the Institute of Modern History of the Academy of Social Sciences, and more than 200 people attended the celebration, including President Hu Sheng, then Director Liu Zaifu, and his colleagues, students, and family members. The "Celebration of the 65th Anniversary of Academic Activities" marked the conclusion of the unjust criticism of Yu Pingbo in 1954.
In 1986, at the invitation of Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore and the Hong Kong Chinese Culture Promotion Association, Yu Pingbo went to Hong Kong to hold an academic lecture on "Research on the Dream of the Red Chamber".
He died on October 15, 1990, at the age of 91. He was buried in Futian Cemetery, Beijing.