Ai Ch'ing

Ai Ch'ing

or

Ai Qing

(both: ī` chĭng`), pseud. of

Chiang Hai-ch'eng

or

Jiang Haicheng,

1910–96, Chinese poet. After studying painting in France (1929–32), where he discovered realist literature and was particularly influenced by the Belgian poet Émile VerhaerenVerhaeren, Émile
, 1855–1916, Belgian poet and critic, a Fleming who wrote in French. His dominant passion for social reform found expression successively in a disgust with mankind, as in the naturalistic verse of Les Flamandes
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, he returned to China and wrote modernist poetry in flamboyant free verse that also showed the influence of the Soviet poet MayakovskyMayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich
, 1893–1930, Russian poet and dramatist. Mayakovsky was a leader of the futurist school in 1912, and he was later the chief poet of the revolution. His lyrics are highly original in rhythm, rhyme, and imagery.
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. He was active in Communist literary circles in the 1940s and 50s. From 1958, following the anti-intellectual campaign of 1957, and for nearly 20 years, he was detained in state farms, humiliated and forced to perform hard manual labor. Allowed to return to Bejing (1976), he returned to writing poetry with the same fervent political voice found in his earlier work. He is widely regarded as one of modern China's finest poets. His son is the noted artist Ai WeiweiAi Weiwei
, 1957–, Chinese artist, architect, filmmaker, and political activist. He is the son of poet Ai Ch'ing, who was internally exiled (1958–76) to work camps with his family.
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.

Bibliography

See translations by E. Eoyang (1982).