Ye Shengtao (28 October 1894 – 16 February 1988) was a Chinese writer, journalist, educator, publisher and politician. He was a founder of the Association for Literary Studies (文學研究會), the first literature association during the May Fourth Movement in China. He served as the Vice-Minister of Culture of the People's Republic of China.
Throughout his life, he was dedicated to publishing and language education. He subscribed to the philosophy that "Literature is for Life" (文學為人生).
Educational and journalistic ideologies
Literature is for life (文學為人生)
Ye was passionate in reflecting the real life in his works:
In retrospect, I seem never to have written about anything of which I had only vague or hazy knowledge. In other words, I cannot write anything by merely imagining it, though I do not banish the element of fancy. I lived in cities, towns and villages, and I wrote what I had observed there. As a teacher, I knew something about life in educational circles and I wrote about that. In a rather elementary and superficial way I watched the gradual development of the Chinese Revolution and I wrote about that too.
— Hsia, C.T., A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, op. cit., p.59.
Contribution to literature
Ye discovered that many people in the New China were selfish, apathetic, hypocritic and conservative. People gave up their values in exchange for a stable life. Ye's works shared a sense of irony. He expressed his discontent in a bid to arouse the awareness of the public towards these social weaknesses. Ye was not only writing stories, but also reporting the fallacies in society. His writings were not only for leisure but feeding the rest by knowing and reflecting the reality, "...the basic requirement for writing fiction is a pair of penetrating and observant[clarification needed] eyes and my eyes are not penetrating enough...Of course, it is not necessary to train one's eyes just for the sake of writing but trained eyes do, in reality, nourish life." (Ye Shengtao, 'Guoqu Suitan', op. cit., p. 46.)
Children's literature: A mind training for the young
Ye's first academic essay was about children literature, called Children's Concept (兒童之觀念), criticizing how feudalism affected children's lives in China.
In fact, Ye was the first writer who created fairy tales in the 1920s. His writing The Scarecrow (Dào cǎo rén 《稻草人》) was published in 1923. This children's reading was very popular among numerous youngsters. Another 'fairy tale was "A Stone Figure of an Ancient Hero". (Gǔdāi yīngxióng de shíxiàng 《古代英雄的石像》) This story was about a stone which had been sculpted into a hero statue. The message behind this easy-to-read story was to ridicule the authorities who were arrogant and insensitive to his people.
"Magazine for High School Students in the War". Zhongxuesheng Zhanshi Banyue kan (《中學生戰時半月刊》)
Ye Shengtao Memorial Hall
Ye Shengtao Memorial Hall is located at the former site of The 5th High School where Ye Shengtao taught from 1917 to 1922. It is located beside the Baosheng Temple in Luzhi township, Wuzhong district of Suzhou city.
Further reading
Chen Liao. Ye Shengtao ping zhuan (Biography of Ye Shengtao). Tianjin: Bai hua Press,1981 陳遼: 《葉聖陶評傳》,天津: 百花出版社,1981
Chen, Lian. Ye Shengtao zhuan ji (A biography of Ye Shengtao) Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chu ban she, 1986. 陳遼《葉聖陶傳記》南京︰江蘇教育出版社,1986
Gu, Yeping; Chen, jie. Ye Shengtao Taipei: Hai feng, Min 80 [1991]. 辜也平 陳捷 《葉聖陶》台北:海風 民80 [1991]。 [1991]。 ISBN957-553-014-4
Liu Zengren, Feng Guanglian. Ye Shengtao yan jiu zi liao (The Study of Ye Shengtao). Beijing : Beijing Shiyue Wenyi Press, 1988 劉增人 馮光廉: 《葉聖陶研究資料》,北京: 北京:十月文藝出版社, 1988. ISBN7-5302-0077-1
Liu, Zengren. Shan gao shui chang: Ye Shengtao zhuan (A biography of Ye Shengtao) Taipei: Ye qiang chu ban she, 1994. 劉增人 《山高水長:葉聖陶傳》台北:業強出版社,1994。 ISBN957-683-229-2
PangYang. Ye Shengtao he ta de jia ren (Ye Shengtao and his family). Shenyang : Chun Feng Wenyi Press, 1983. 龐暘:《葉聖陶和他的家人》瀋陽:春風文藝出版社, 2001 ISBN7-5313-2293-5
Selis, David Joel. Yeh Shao-chün : a critical study of his fiction, Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Microfilms International, 1981.
Ye, Shengtao. Ye Shengtao Hong Kong: San lian shu dian xianggang fen dian, 1983. 《葉聖陶》葉聖陶 香港:三聯書店香港分店1983。 ISBN962-04-0217-0