| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Ye Shengtao | |
|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese: | 葉聖陶 |
| Simplified Chinese: | 叶圣陶 |
| Pinyin: | Yè Shèngtáo |
| Wade-Giles: | Yeh Sheng-t'ao |
| Real name: | Ye Shaojun (葉紹鈞) |
| Courtesy name: | Bǐngchén (秉臣) |
| Pseudonyms: | Yetao (葉陶), Shengtao (聖陶), Guishan (桂山) et. al |
Ye Shengtao ( 28 October 1894— 1988) was a prominent author, educationist and publisher. He was one of the founders of the Association for Literary Studies (文學研究會), the first literature association during the May Fourth Movement.
Throughout his life, he was dedicated to publishing and language education. His strongest advocation was 'Literature is for Life' (文學為人生).
Ye was born on 28 October, 1894 in Wu county (吳縣), Suzhou (蘇州市), Jiangsu Province, China. His father worked as a book keeper for a landlord and they lived a very modest life.When he was six years old, he entered a mediocre school for primary study. At that time, he always followed his father to work. He travelled around the city and experienced the lives of the poor.
In 1907, Ye entered Caoqiao Secondary School (草橋中學). After his graduation, he worked as a primary school teacher for 10 years. However, Ye was dismissed by the school in 1914. During his hermitry, he devoted himself entirely to writing classical Chinese (文言文 Wenyen-wen) novels, which were published in “Libailiu Magazine” (《禮拜六》 “Saturday Magazine”). After leaving that primary school ,he became the Chinese teacher of a school set up by the Shanghai Commercial Press. At the same time, he became the editor of primary textbooks of the Shanghai Commercial Press in 1915.
Ye had been living in an era of unstability — the 1894 Sino- Japanese War (甲午戰爭),the Hundred Days Reform (戊戌政變 / 百日維新), and later the Sphere of Influence (列強割據)etc. His early life experiences induced his sense of nationalism and contributed to his later career as a journalist and an educationalist.
Throughout his life, Ye worked a lot for literary movement. Under the influences of May Fourth Movement in 1919 (Wu-si Yundong 五四運動)commonly known as the “ New Culture Movement” 新文化運動), Ye indulged himself in his literary career. He participated in a student organization called 'Xinchao She' (“New Tide Society” 新潮社1919-1920) of the Beijing University (北京大學), and started publishing fictions, poems, prose, literary criticism and scripts of drama etc. Ye was also an editor in PuShe( 樸社, 1923), a bookstore held by literators at that time. In 1921, Ye, Mao DunMao Dun ( July 4, 1896 March 27, 1981) was the pen name of Shen Dehong a 20th century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and journalist. He adopted 'Mao Dun' , meaning "contradiction", as his pen name to express his sigh for the contradicting revolutionar (茅盾, 1896-1981) and Zheng ZhenduoZheng Zhenduo , (1898-1958), Chinese courtesy name Xidi , was a journalist, a modern writer, an archeologist and a literature scholar. His pen names were Baofun , Guo Yuanxin and CT. He made a significant contribution towards the establishment of the Chin (鄭振鐸, 1898-1958) founded the earliest literary society of the New Literature Movement, the "Wenxue Yanjiu Hui", (文學研究會 "Association for Literary Studies"), advocating realism art but rejecting the principle “Art is for Art's Sake”. In 1936, Ye,Mao Dun and Hung Sen(洪深)established the "Chinese Literature and Art Society"(Zhongguo Wenyi jia Xiegui 中國文藝家協會).In 1941, he became a editorial committee of the "Teaching for Literature and History"”(Wenshi Jiaoxue 文史教學). Ye was one of the establishers of the "Literary Alliance for Anti-Japanese Imperialism" (文藝界反帝抗日大聯盟).