Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t8.3

v2.c10.s2.t8.3

Xu Zhimo completed his schooling in Hangzhou High School between 1910-1915 and in 1915 he married Zhang Youyi. But since this was an arranged marriage it did not last long. In the following year (in 1916), he moved to Peiyang Univeristy present-day Tianjin University to study law. In 1917, he shifted to Peking University as the law department of Peiyang University merged with the former. In 1918, after studying at Peking University for about a year, he travelled to the United States of America to study history in Clark University. Shortly afterwards, he transferred to Columbia University in New York to study economics and politics in 1919. Finding the place “intolerable”, he left in 1921 to study at King's College, Cambridge in England, where he fell in love with English romantic poetry like that of Keats and Shelley, and was also influenced by the French romantic and symbolist poets, some of whose works he translated into Chinese. Another important and noteworthy event of his life during this time was that it is in London he fell in love with Lin Huiyin and divorced his first wife Zhang. Inspired by his new life and love, Xu wrote many poems during that time. But as Lin was promised by her father to marry someone else, Lin and Xu Zhimo had to finally break up. Finally he married Lu Xiaomen in 1926 and settled with her till the end.