Cao Yu is a playwright and drama educator in China. Real name Wan Jiabao, the word Xiaoshi. 19 10 was born in Qianjiang, Hubei, and was born in Tianjin on September 24th.

Cao Yu was born in a feudal bureaucratic family. His father Wan Dezun served as Commander-in-Chief, Commander-in-Chief Li and Secretary to the President. Cao Yu's biological mother died young, and her stepmother loved drama. She often took Cao Yu to watch national dramas and civilized dramas. Cao Yu didn't go to primary school, stayed at home, recited classics and read history, but he often peeked at books such as A Dream of Red Mansions, The Water Margin and The West Chamber.

Cao Yu spent his youth in Tianjin. Tianjin is an important town in the north, with developed commerce and convenient land and water transportation. Cao Yu witnessed the atrocities of the imperialists here, and also saw the labor of many "high-level hooligans, high-level villains" and "coolies", and heard the voice of selling children and girls coming from the alley late at night. This has played a great role in the formation of Cao Yu's anti-imperialist and patriotic thoughts and creative tendencies all his life, and also provided materials and character prototypes for some of his novels, poems and literary works.

/kloc-in the autumn of 0/922, Cao Yu entered Nankai Middle School. This is a school with a democratic spirit. Nankai New Troupe was a famous campus troupe in China at that time. 1925, Cao Yu joined Nankai New Troupe and became an important backbone. On the one hand, he performed classical masterpieces, such as Moliere's Miser and Ibsen's Public Enemy. On the other hand, he created a new drama on current affairs and carried out democratic propaganda and agitation. Before and after, he read a lot of new literary novels, poems and literary works since the May 4th Movement. He once said that Lu Xun and Guo Moruo's novels, poems and literary works made him "excited" more than Ibsen he liked. Because these novels, poems and literary works "aroused his concern for social problems in China".

1928 Cao Yu was promoted to the Department of Political Science of Nankai University. From 65438 to 0929, he was transferred to the Department of Western Literature in Tsinghua University. But he spent most of his time in libraries and stacks, greedily studying world famous works, especially the Greek tragedies, drama novels, poems and literary works of W Shakespeare, E O 'Neill and ап Chekhov. At the same time, I often go to Guanghe Building with my friends to enjoy the performances of famous Peking Opera artists and go to Tianqiao to listen to Quyi. Cao Yu also dabbled in some philosophical works of the East and the West. He "read Laozi, Buddhism and the Bible" and praised Plato's "magical utopia". He sympathized with Schopenhauer's deep melancholy about life, and loved Nietzsche's abundant vitality and superman thought. Both Solomon's wisdom and Jesus' sincere love for mankind made him sigh and admire. However, as an artist, he was moved by the spirit of these philosophers, but he did not become a prisoner of any kind of philosophical thought. He felt that "this society must change", so he wanted to "find a way" to solve the "serious problems" he felt in China society. But after reading these philosophical works, the answer is still "inexplicable." However, his persistent and passionate spirit of seeking was cast in his early works, which enhanced the ideological connotation and appeal of novels, poems and literary works.

1988165438+10 In October, Cao Yu was elected as the executive chairman of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles at the Fifth Congress of the Federation of Chinese Literary and Art Circles.