The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

"Quick, copy the poem down!"

"Have you brought too many pens? Lend me one."

"I love this poem so much, it's so well written!"

"..."

The female students in the auditorium didn't listen to what Zhou Hexuan was talking about at the moment, and they all focused on copying new poems.

As a love poem, "To the Oak Tree" has neither the lingering poignancy nor the enthusiasm of each other, but its attitude towards love can be unanimously approved by both male and female readers.

"I must be a kapok next to you, and be with you as the image of a tree."

"We share the cold wave, wind and thunder, and thunderbolt, and we share the mist, mist, and neon. It seems to be separated forever, but we are still dependent for life."

Tan Yanqiu sat under the stage, pondering these few words over and over again, with an inexplicable brilliance in his eyes.

Isn't this the love she longed for? Share joys and sorrows with your lover, support each other, and live hand in hand. Enjoy love but still be yourself, don't be a man's appendage, don't be a canary in a cage.

"Mr. Zhou really understands women. He expressed everything our daughter wanted to say in his poems." Chen Biyun laughed softly.

Tan Yanqiu muttered, "He must like women with independent personalities."

Chen Biyun said: "Among so many scholars, I admire Mr. Zhou, who always thinks about our women."

The moment the lecture was over, dozens of girls rushed to the stage and asked Zhou Hexuan for his autograph with the manuscript they had just copied. Some bold girls even asked Zhou Hexuan face to face if he was married.

Tan Yanqiu couldn't make it through, so she had no choice but to return to the dormitory and write an article for the "Women" magazine, along with Zhou Hexuan's "To the Oak Tree".

More than ten years ago, when Yuan Shikai was in power, because he was dissatisfied with the media's reports on the "Song Jiaoren case" and the "Second Revolution", he blatantly purged the newspapers and periodicals that held opposing opinions. Of the more than 500 newspapers across the country, only 139 remained. At least 24 journalists were killed, and more than 60 people were arrested and imprisoned.

It is known in history as "reporting disasters with Kuichou".

Gui Chou's reporting of disasters led to an interesting result, which was the rise of women's publications. Because this stuff has no risk, the authorities' censorship is not strict, so that some literary publications are published under the banner of women's magazines.

Shanghai's "Women" magazine is one of the leaders. At the beginning, it mainly published domestic content, advocating women to be good wives and mothers in the new era.

During the May 4th Movement, new scholars took over the "Women" magazine, advocating women's liberation and women's revolution, and even Lu Xun often contributed articles to this journal. But just the year before last, the editor-in-chief Zhang Xichen played too far. When discussing sexual morality, he actually said that as long as it does not endanger others and society, monogamous and dual wives or monogamous and dual husbands are acceptable.

This point of view was not only condemned by conservatives, but even other scholars of the New Culture Movement expressed strong opposition.

Seeing that the incident became serious, the Commercial Press, the owner behind the "Women" magazine, had to remove Zhang Xichen as the editor-in-chief, and the style of the publication deteriorated greatly.

Today, the "Women" magazine mainly publishes the school life of female students, and the experience of married women in housekeeping, etc., and this move has won the support of more female readers. good.

Just when Zhou Hexuan boarded the ship and left Shanghai, Du Jiutian, the editor-in-chief of "Women" magazine, happened to read the manuscript of the female student Tan Yanqiu.

The article was written so-so, mainly about her lectures, and some of Zhou Hexuan's views were also quoted. Du Jiutian didn't take it seriously at first, but when he saw the appendix "To the Oak Tree", he immediately became excited.

"What a poem!"

Du Jiutian read it repeatedly, and finally took up a pen to write a poem review himself——

"Zhou Hexuan's new poems are novel in conception, magnificent in imagery, exquisite in language, self-contained, and have a distinct personal style. "To the Oak Tree" uniquely selects the two images of "oak tree" and "kapok", which are respectively metaphors for men and women...

The oak tree is tall and majestic, full of masculine charm. Comparing women to kapok is also charming. Poems shout out in a feminine tone, don’t be a stalking flower, don’t be a bird singing in the shade, don’t be a spring of wishful thinking, don’t be a mountain that blindly supports an oak tree. From these images, the central theme of this poem is expressed: that is, women should not lose themselves in love. Love needs to be based on personality equality, mutual respect, and like-mindedness;

This poem uses novel and magnificent metaphors to appropriately and appropriately express the poet's ideal view of love, giving people unlimited room for reverie. What's even more rare is the thought of women's liberation contained in it. Women's liberation is not blindly deviant, but to have persistence and principles, responsibilities and obligations..."

When this issue of "Women" magazine was released, Zhou Hexuan had already returned to Tianjin, so he didn't know about the sensation "To the Oak" caused in the southern women's circle.

Once this poem was published, it was reprinted by many women's magazines such as "Women's Times", "Women's World" and "Chinese Women's World", and it is known as the greatest and most progressive love poem in China. New poetry groups and literary societies all over the South have discussed and studied "To the Oak Tree".

In the following 20 years, "oak tree" and "kapok" also had new meanings, and many female writers used the word "cotton" in their pen names.

Because Zhou Hexuan has joined the Crescent Society, he is regarded as a poet of the Crescent School. Later, Liang Shiqiu commented: "To the Oak Tree" surpasses the whole love poems of the new moon, and it is really a rare masterpiece.

At the same time, Lu Guchun, the director of the Chinese and Western Girls' School, also contributed to the "Women's Times", expounding Zhou Hexuan's views on "self-esteem, self-improvement, self-love, and self-reliance."

The "Women's Times" referred to it as the "Four-Self Principles" for short, and characterized it as "the standard of women's virtues in the new era", and praised Zhou Hexuan as "a friend of women" and "a strange man in the Republic of China".

Today, the women's liberation movement in the South is intensifying, and the "Four-Self Principles" have been unanimously recognized by women's associations in various places, and have been widely spread with the development of the movement. Women should have self-esteem, self-improvement, self-love, and self-reliance. This view has gradually been accepted and supported by the public in a subtle way.

Even those conservatives are extremely respectful of the "Four-Self Principles." Because the "self-love" in it is different from those feminist ideas that advocate complete liberation, and is more in line with traditional social moral standards.

For a while, people seem to have forgotten Zhou Hexuan's identity as a historian, speaker, writer, and newspaperman, and only remembered that he was a poet and feminist activist.

But no matter what, Zhou Hexuan's title of "friend of women" cannot be taken off. Four years later, when Shanghai's "Shenzhen" selected the "beautiful men of the Republic of China", although Zhou Hexuan could barely squeeze into the top five, according to the questionnaire, more than 60% of the women voted for him.

Zhang Ailing said in an interview in her later years: "When I was in middle school, Mr. Zhou was recognized by girls as an ideal lover, and his every move would attract attention. Whenever Mr. Zhou's works came out, he would definitely see countless female students in the bookstore. figure."