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Wang Guowei | |||||||||||||||||
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| Born | (1877-12-02)2 December 1877 Haining, Zhejiang, Qing China | ||||||||||||||||
| Died | 2 June 1927(1927-06-02) (aged 49) Kunming Lake, Beijing, Republic of China | ||||||||||||||||
| Cause of death | Suicide by drowning | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Historian, poet | ||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 王國維 | ||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 王国维 | ||||||||||||||||
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Wang Guowei (Chinese:王國維; 2 December 1877 – 2 June 1927) orWang Kuo-wei,courtesy nameJing'an (靜安) orBoyu (伯隅), was a Chinese historian and poet. A versatile scholar, he made important contributions to the studies of ancient history,epigraphy,philology,vernacular literature and literary theory.
A native ofHaining, Zhejiang, he went toShanghai to work as a proofreader for a newspaper, after failing to pass theImperial Examination in his hometown, at the age of 22. There he studied in the Dongwen Xueshe (東文學社), aJapanese language teaching school, and became a protégé ofLuo Zhenyu. Sponsored by Luo, he left for Japan in 1901, studyingnatural sciences inTokyo. Back in China one year later, he began to teach in different colleges, and devoted himself to the study ofGerman idealism. He fled to Japan with Luo when theXinhai Revolution took place in 1911. He returned to China in 1916, but remained loyal to the overthrown Manchu emperor. In 1924, he was appointed professor by theTsinghua University, where he was known as one of the "Four Great Tutors," along with the prominent Chinese scholarsLiang Qichao,Chen Yinke, andY. R. Chao.
Utilitarianism and 'Life-ism' (the continuous expansion and preservation of life) were advocated by Liang Qichao andYan Fu, but drew criticism from Wang who claimed that they limited philosophical thinking.[1]
In 1927, Wang drowned himself inKunming Lake in theSummer Palace before theNational Revolutionary Army entered Beijing during theNorthern Expedition.[2][3]
Chen Yinque's epitaph read: "The suicide of Wang was because he worried about losing the independent spirit and free thought he long cherished in his academic pursuit."[4]
Wang focused on the studies of Chinese vernacular literature during the early year of his career. When he became convinced thatSchopenhauer's metaphysics were not believable, he turned for solace to critical and philological studies of the novelDream of the Red Chamber, as well as writing a concise history of the theaters of theSong andYuan dynasties.[5] Although its conclusions are controversial, his article "On A Dream of the Red Chamber" has been called "a monumental development in the history of modern Chinese criticism."[6] Later he changed his academic direction, focusing on philology and ancient history. His works on ancient history and philology are collected inGuantang Jilin (觀堂集林). In these areas, Wang is remembered for his contributions to the study oforacle bone script and the history of theShang dynasty. In 1917, Wang published a scholarly article entitledStudy of the Ancestral Kings and Nobility Appearing in the Yin Oracular Inscriptions (殷卜辭中所見先公先王考) in which Wang identified 31 kings and ancestors of the Shang royal lineage as the recipients of sacrifices that were recorded in theYinxu oracle bone inscriptions. Wang was able to basically confirm the king list compiled bySima Qian over a millennium later in the "Basic Annals of Yin" of theRecords of the Grand Historian (史記·殷本紀) while making several corrections to it.[7]
