Hsu Chih-mo (1896-19 November 1931), poet. His poetic experiments in form, nieter, and theme and his essays increased Chinese understanding and awareness of Western poetry and of the potentialities of the modern Chinese language.

Hsiashih, Chekiang, was the birthplace of Hsü Chih-mo. His father, Hsü Shen-ju, was a prominent banker and a friend of the noted entrepreneur Chang Chien(q.v.). Hsü Chih-mo received traditional training in the Chinese classics and then attended a Western-style college in Shanghai. He entered Peking University in the autumn of 1916. During this period, his ambition was to become the Alexander Hamilton of China, and he even adopted the Western name Hamilton for a time.

In the summer of 1918, after graduation from Peking University, Hsü went to the United States for further study. On the trip, he composed a long pledge in classical Chinese to his parents, vowing to devote his life to the wellbeing of his country. He studied economics and sociology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then transferred to Columbia University to study political science. Finding life in the United States incompatible with his temperament, he went to England in 1920. In England, Hsü studied at Cambridge University, which had an important influence on him. From reading Swinburne he acquired a taste for alliterative cadence and impressionism, and from the Bloomsbury group, ideas on the poetic use of images. He also met Katherine Mansfield and her associates. He soon began to write poetry and decided to pursue a literary career.

After returning to China in October 1922, Hsü Chih-mo went to Peking. He wrote poems and essays in the new vernacular style, and became a cherished protege of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.) because of his command of classical Chinese. Hsü came to know many of the leading intellectuals of the period and in 1924 taught literature at National Peking University. A new dimension was added to Hsü's literary development in the same year, when Rabindranath Tagore visited China. Hsü Chih-mo served as interpreter for the prominent Indian poet and philosopher, accompanying him on his lecture tour through China and on his short visit to Japan. His renderings of Tagore's words into Chinese were praised for their spontaneous artistry.

In March 1925 Hsü again w^ent abroad. Traveling by way of the Soviet Union, he went to Germany and then toured Italy and France, where he paid tribute at the graves of a number of famous literary men. He also spent some time in London, where he had a brief interview with the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. After five months in Europe, Hsü Chih-mo returned to China and entered upon his most productive period as a poet. Then only in his early thirties, he had established a literary position that enabled him to play a leading role in the so-called modern poetry movement. The poets of Hsü's circle attempted to write according to the literary standards of the modern West rather than those of traditional China. Their aim was to develop a new style in Chinese poetry by combining vernacular Chinese and Western poetic forms. The poems of Hsü Chih-mo and those of Wen I-to and Chu Hsiang (qq.v.) are good examples of this pioneering, self-conscious attempt to follow Western rhythmic and metrical forms. The approach marked a complete break with classical Chinese style, and conservative critics viewed it as an heretical deviation. Hsü Chih-mo also influenced literature in China as an editor and as a teacher. In October 1925 he assumed the editorship of the literary supplement of the Civen Pao [morning post] in Peking. The Ch'en Pao supplement was a major literary organ in the post-1919 era in north China, and Hsü did much to increase its prestige by obtaining poems, stories, and articles from such leading intellectuals as Chang Tung-sun, V. R. Chao (Chao Yuen-ren), Ch'en Heng-che, Kuo Mo-jo, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Wen I-to, and Wong Wen-hao. Hsü extended the supplement's influence by devoting regular and specific attention to the fields of poetry and drama. He also served as chief editor of Shih-k'an [poetry magazine], another supplement to the Ch'en Pao, from its appearance on 1 April 1926 until its suspension on 10 June. At that time, he was in close contact with members of the literary group known as Hsin-yueh-she [crescent moon society], which had been organized in Peking earlier in 1926 by a group including Hu Shih, Liang Shih-ch'iu, LoLung-chi, P'anKuang-tan(qq.v.), and Wen I-to. Some members of this group had studied in the United States or England; others were poets connected with the Ch'en Pao supplement.

When the Northern Expedition forces reached the Yangtze in 1927, Hsü Chih-mo left Peking and went to Shanghai, where he taught English at Kuang Hua University, Soochow University Law School, and later at Ta Hsia University. In the spring of 1928 Hsü, Hu Shih, and Shao Hsun-mei organized the Hsin-yueh shu-tien [crescent moon book company] in Shanghai. The following year, this book company began publishing the Hsin-yuehyueh-k'an [crescent moon monthly], the literary journal of the Hsin-yuehshe, which was influential in introducing Western literature to Chinese readers and in promoting an appreciation of the aesthetic aspects of literature. Hsü Chih-mo was one of three editors, the other two being Wen I-to and Jao Meng-k'an.

After a brief trip to Europe w ith Wang Wenpo in the autumn of 1928, Hsü returned to China and in 1929 taught English at National Central University in Nanking. He continued to teach at Kuang Hua University in Shanghai and joined the Chunghua Book Company, one of the leading publishers in Shanghai, as an editor. In 1930 Hsu resigned from National Central University to resume teaching at National Peking University at the invitation of Hu Shih, then the dean of studies. At the beginning of 1931 Hsü was a leading figure in the group which launched the first independent periodical in China devoted to modern Chinese poetry. The magazine was entitled Shih-k'an [poetry] and is to be distinguished from the earlier poetry supplement to the Ch'en Pao. During 1931 Hsü Chih-mo often commuted by airplane between Peiping and Shanghai ; the exhilaration of flying delighted him. However, air travel in China in that period was still risky. When Hsü was flying from Shanghai to Peiping on 19 November 1931, the plane encountered fog over Shantung and crashed near Tsinan, killing all aboard.

Hsü left four collections of verse. These are Chih-mo ti shih [poems of Chih-mo], of 1925; Feng-lang-ts'' ui ti i-yeh [one night in Florence], of 1927; Meng-hu chi [fierce tiger], of 1931; and Yun-yu [cloud wanderings], of 1932. He also left four volumes of essays: Lo-yeh chi [fallen leaves], of 1926; Pa-li ti lin-chao [Parisian trifles], of 1927; Tzu-p'ou chi [self-dissection], of 1928; and Ch'iu [autumn], of 1931. Hsü was also an able translator. His important translations include Undine, published in 1 923, and Katherine Mansfield's short stories, published in 1927. He also published translations of 'oltaire's Candide and of James Stephens' The Charwoman's Daughter in 1927. A number of Hsü's poems were set to music by Y. R. Chao and made the Shanghai "hit parade," notably one entitled "Yun-hai" [sea of rhyme] .

Hsü Chih-mo married twice. His first wife, Chang Yü-i, was the younger sister of Carsun Chang (Chang Chia-sen, q.v.) and Chang Kia-ngau (Chang Chia-ao, q.v.). They were married in Hsiashih in 1915 and had two sons, Hsü Pi-te and Hsü Ju-sun. During his Cambridge days, Hsü had come to believe that the free pursuit of adventure by the soul was the highest ideal in life. In March 1922 he wrote his wife that they must be divorced. In the summer of 1924 Hsü met Lu Hsiao-man, a talented and beautiful Peking socialite who w^as married to a high-ranking Chinese army officer. After a stormy romance and a period of separation in 1925 when Hsü went to Europe, she divorced her husband. They were married in 1926 at a ceremony which was memorable because Liang Ch'i-ch'ao delivered a blistering public speech chastising Hsü. Herself a writer and painter, Lu Hsiao-man collaborated with Hsü in writing Pien K'un-kang (1928), a five-act play applauded by contemporary critics for its atmosphere, characterization, and dialogue. The letters exchanged between Hsü Chih-mo and Lu Hsiao-man were published in Chih-mo jih-chi in 1947, 16 years after Hsü's death. Lu died in Shanghai on 2 April 1965, at the age of 64 sui.

Hsü Chih-mo was generally regarded by his contemporaries as the first fully successful modern poet in the Chinese language. His experiments in form, meter, and theme, had a far-reaching influence. His poems and essays on poetry did much to raise the level of Chinese understanding of Western poetry and to increase awareness of the potentialities of the modern Chinese language. His ingenious use of Peking speech dialect, together with his native Hsiashih dialect and English, produced a refreshing, individual style. Poetry, he believed, should aspire to the beauty of music in its rhythm, the beauty of painting in its diction, and the beauty of architecture in its style; and he strove, with considerable success, to achieve these ends in his own poems.