Qian Zhongshu
Chinese scholar and writer
Died when: 88 years 28 days (1056 months)Star Sign: Sagittarius
Qian Zhongshu (November 21, 1910 – December 19, 1998), also transliterated as Ch'ien Chung-shu or Dzien Tsoong-su, was a renowned 20th century Chinese literary scholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition.
He is best known for his satirical novel Fortress Besieged. His works of nonfiction are characterized by large amount of quotations in both Chinese and Western languages such as English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.
He also played an important role in digitizing Chinese classics late in his life. Qian created a profound theoretical meaning for the three features of motivational nature, empathetic nature, and rational nature of aesthetic emotion for literature by deeply studying questions such as the source of emotion motivation, the ways to express emotion, and the optimal comfort in emotion in writing.
He believed that the source of emotion motivation is poems because poems can convey human's emotion. When people transfer their emotion to inanimate objects, they give these objects life, which is the ways to express emotion.
Also, Qian insisted that humans cannot express their emotion as they want; instead, they should rationally control their emotion to a certain degree so that they can achieve an optimal appreciation status.