Wang Guowei (; 2 December 18772 June 1927) or Wang Kuo-wei,

courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China China, officially the People's R ...

Jing'an () or Boyu (), was a Chinese historian and poet. A versatile and original scholar, he made important contributions to the studies of ancient history, epigraphy, philology, vernacular literature and literary theory.

Biography

A native of Haining,

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by ...

, he went to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

to work as a proofreader for a newspaper, after failing to pass the

Imperial Examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...

in his hometown, at the age of 22. There he studied in the Dongwen Xueshe (東文學社), a

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ...

teaching school, and became a protégé of Luo Zhenyu. Sponsored by Luo, he left for Japan in 1901, studying natural sciences in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. Back in China one year later, he began to teach in different colleges, and devoted himself to the study of

German idealism German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary ...

. He fled to Japan with Luo when the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty, the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of Chi ...

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 the

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Projec ...

, where he was known as one of the "Four Great Tutors," along with the prominent Chinese scholars

Liang Qichao Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade-Giles: ''Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1''; Yale: ''Lèuhng Kái-chīu'') (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political activist, journalist, and intellectual. His th ...

Chen Yinke Chen Yinke, or Chen Yinque (3 July 18907 October 1969), was a Chinese historian, linguist, orientalist, politician, and writer. He was a fellow of Academia Sinica, considered one of the most original and creative historians in 20th century China ...

, and Y. R. Chao. In 1927, Wang drowned himself in Kunming Lake in the

Summer Palace The Summer Palace () is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden in the Qing dynasty. Inside includes Longevity Hill () Kunming Lake and Seventeen Hole Bridge. It covers an expanse of , three-quarte ...

before the

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in Chin ...

entered Beijing during the

Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. Th ...

. 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."

Legacy

Wang focused on the studies of Chinese vernacular literature during the early year of his career. When he became convinced that

Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the p ...

's metaphysics were not believable, he turned for solace to critical and philological studies of the novel ''

Dream of the Red Chamber ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' (''Honglou Meng'') or ''The Story of the Stone'' (''Shitou Ji'') is a novel composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the 18th century. One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it is known for ...

'', as well as writing a concise history of the theaters of the

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

and Yuan dynasties. 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." Later he changed his academic direction, focusing on philology and ancient history. His works on ancient history and philology are collected in ''Guantang Jilin'' (觀堂集林). In these areas, Wang is remembered for his contributions to the study of

oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...

and the history of the

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Dynasties in Chinese history, Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally suc ...

. In 1917, Wang published a scholarly article entitled ''Study 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 the

Yinxu Yinxu (modern ; ) is the site of one of the ancient and major historical capitals of China. It is the source of the archeological discovery of oracle bones and oracle bone script, which resulted in the identification of the earliest known Chines ...

oracle bone inscriptions. Wang was able to basically confirm the king list compiled by Sima Qian over a millennium later in the "Basic Annals of Yin" of the ''

Records of the Grand Historian ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...

'' (《史記·殷本紀》) while making several corrections to it.Wang Guowei. ''Study of the Ancestral Kings and Nobility Appearing in the Yin Oracular Inscriptions'' (1917) (王國維《殷卜辭中所見先公先王考》, 民國6年）.

References

External links

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Biography and bibliography
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Wang Guowei. A Portrait by Kong Kai Ming
at Hong Kong Baptist University Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Guowei 1877 births 1927 suicides Chinese palaeographers Chinese scholars Historians from Zhejiang Historians of theatre People from Haining Poets from Zhejiang Qing dynasty poets Republic of China historians Republic of China poets Suicides by drowning in China Suicides in the Republic of China Writers from Jiaxing Scholars of Chinese opera