Other introductions of Zhao Yiheng

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"Chinese Talents" praised him as "a wise man who forgets his age"

"Phoenix Nirvana" in the Academy of Social Sciences

In 1978, the second year after the resumption of the college entrance examination, the country began to resume master's degree enrollment. This year, there were 10,708 places nationwide. This year, for him, seems to have come too late, just like the long-drought grain seedlings encountering the belated rain. After Zhao Yiheng heard the news, he desperately broke away from the mining area and determined to make a long-awaited effort for his ideals and future. The hand used to holding a shovel picked up the pen again and walked into the examination room. The taste was really hard to chew. The school he chose to enroll in was the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and his tutor was the famous poet and translator Mr. Bian Zhilin. This is a great challenge for Zhao Yiheng, who has lived in seclusion for many years. As the most authoritative humanities and social sciences research institution in China, the difficulty of the Academy of Social Sciences can be imagined, and Mr. Bian Zhilin is a master of modern poetry. Zhao Yiheng has long admired this famous literary predecessor. After studying hard, Zhao Yiheng was finally admitted to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with first place. During his several years in the graduate school of the Academy of Social Sciences, Zhao Yiheng was like a phoenix rising from the ashes, tempering himself into a mature young scholar. Soon, he rose to prominence in the Academy of Social Sciences, a place full of talents. Due to Zhao Yiheng's diligence, he was invited to visit the United States in 1981 as soon as he graduated. According to relevant records, Zhao Yiheng is one of the first batch of “Fulbright Scholars” in China. The so-called "Fulbright Scholar" refers to a large-scale international cooperation and exchange project led by the United States that began in 1946 and aims to promote mutual understanding between countries through educational and cultural exchanges.

After the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, Zhao Yiheng, as a representative of young Chinese scholars, set foot on American soil. This is the first time in his life that he has gone abroad. As an assistant researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a Fulbright scholar, Zhao Yiheng studied in the United States for three years. Not only did he win the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, but he was also admitted to a prestigious American school, the University of California, Berkeley. in Comparative Literature, and studied under Professor Cyril Baizhi, a famous sinologist. Professor Bai Zhi is famous in the international academic circle for his participation in the writing of "Cambridge History of the Communist Party of China" and the English translation of "The Peony Pavilion". During the five years of studying at Berkeley, Zhao Yiheng finally became a literary critic with outstanding vision. His works were not only published in well-known domestic publications such as "Shanghai Literature", "Reading", "Chinese Comparative Literature", etc. He wrote the two works "The Traveling God of Poetry" and "New Criticism". More importantly, while working as a Fulbright scholar, he also came into contact with the "New Criticism" theory in the United States at that time, and was keenly aware of the importance and significance of this literary theory. From then on, he became the "first person" to introduce "New Criticism" into domestic academic circles. The so-called "New Criticism" refers to the literary criticism theory that emerged in the United States and spread to the world in the mid-20th century. New Criticism is different from previous criticism theories in that it places the focus of criticism on the text. Semantic analysis based on text is the core of New Criticism Theory, which is an authentic textual ontology. In the 1980s when various Western ideological trends were surging in mainland China, Zhao Yiheng's introduction of New Criticism played a great role in promoting the construction of contemporary Chinese literary criticism theory.

"For me, and for every literature student, studying New Criticism is a necessary stage of work. The knowledge we face is what history projects today. Shadow, we cannot skip the evolution of history and directly grasp the present." Twenty-five years later, Zhao Yiheng published another book "Rereading New Criticism". In the preface, he commented on the value of New Criticism. This Chinese intellectual who has lived abroad for nearly 20 years explained in one sentence the origin of his choice of New Criticism. He said: "I chose New Criticism as a research topic back then because New Criticism has many connections with the history of modern Chinese literary theory."

Top Chinese scholars settled in "Sichuan University"

When talking about Zhao Yiheng, Hong Ying cannot be ignored.

After graduating from Berkeley, Zhao Yiheng made plans to return to work at the Academy of Social Sciences, but Professor Bai Zhi suddenly told Zhao Yiheng the news that the Oriental College of the University of London was recruiting, so he might as well give it a try. In this way, Zhao Yiheng relied on his profound academic training to become the second Chinese professor in the history of the University of London after Lao She. It was at this time that the new generation female poet Hong Ying met Zhao Yiheng by chance. The two met in a restaurant in Jishuitan, Beijing. Hong Ying's frankness and astuteness impressed the traditional and simple Zhao Yiheng, and the two fell in love. Soon they were married at South Wimbledon Church in England. With the care and help of Zhao Yiheng, Hongying published several influential novels in the UK and became a representative writer of new immigrant literature in China. During his more than ten years in London, despite being in a Western society, Zhao Yiheng still maintained his traditional living habits. "Teacher Zhao is a traditional scholar-official." One of my Sichuan University brothers told me: "One year during the postgraduate re-examination at the University of London, a boy with excellent grades wore an earring. Teacher Zhao couldn't accept it and thought it was "Students cannot learn well" Zhao Yiheng's introduction. In the face of an open Western society, this shows how traditional and introverted Mr. Zhao is, but Mr. Hongying is a very unrestrained and open feminist. Both have excellent careers in their respective fields, but they are completely opposite emotionally. "Due to differences in living habits and world views, Zhao Yiheng and Hong Ying had no choice but to break up peacefully. After that, Lu Zhenglan, a gentle lady doctor from the Jiangnan water town, entered Zhao Yiheng's life. Calmness, calmness and stability are the common pursuits of Zhao Yiheng and Lu Zhenglan in life. In July 2010, Zhao Yiheng gave up his British nationality of 16 years and regained Chinese nationality. He chose to settle in Sichuan University. This move is a great irony for many "elite immigrants" and is also a big "earthquake" for the academic community. For a time, major newspapers across the country published the news that "Top Chinese scholar Zhao Yiheng settled in Sichuan University." Zhao Yiheng's move undoubtedly reminds people of the resolute return of scholars such as Qian Xuesen and Deng Jiaxian back then - there were some who praised it and some who doubted it. 67 years old is an age that can be called "old age", but he believes that learning can not only make people wiser, but also make them younger. Indeed, a wise man must forget his age. To this day, Zhao Yiheng still insists on recruiting doctoral students in four directions, and his articles with a British essay style can often be read in many domestic newspapers and magazines. "In addition to writing, I am also doing research on semiotics." Zhao Yiheng is still full of confidence in himself. He said: "Semiotics is mathematics in the liberal arts, and there are few people doing it, but I still want to try my best to complete some of the work I should do."