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Biographies come in two forms - autobiographies and biographies. Comparatively, I always feel that autobiographies are better. Biographies can be literary or historical; I prefer those that blend literature and history. Too much literature leads to imagination, too much history may become rigid. A typical biography is Lin Yutang's "The Life of Su Dongpo". Lin Yutang poured his life passion and interpretation of fate into Su Dongpo, two great men transcending the historical river, making it a moving read. No matter how good a biography is, it always has an indirect feeling. Autobiographies are completely different. An autobiography written with fiery passion and genuine emotion, due to the author's temperament and grace, cannot fail to captivate.
"The Duncan Autobiography" is like this. I love football, and through this book, I quietly enter a woman's world.
Duncan was born in 1878. This woman who was born full of spirituality later became the founder of modern dance. Duncan's dance is naturally formed, completely breaking the rigid and formal ballet mode since the modern era. In expressing freedom and agility, Duncan opened a new era of dance. In Duncan's artistic world, dance comes from divine inspiration, and she merely uses her body to express the will of God. Duncan was born for dance and loved her art all her life.
Compared with Duncan's dance, what is more gossiped about in the secular world is Duncan's private life. In the first half of the twentieth century, still a conservative era, Duncan's art and her life were particularly attention-grabbing. Duncan fully immersed herself in her dances. To express natural emotions and connect with ancient art, Duncan liked wearing thin, gauzy clothes. In passionate and carefree performances, she broke through the constraints of taboos. She used her beautiful body to converse with God. No other dancer dared to do this publicly, only Duncan. This free-spirited woman pursued her art as well as her love just like her pursuit of dance. She had countless lovers, for which some called her a "high-class prostitute." For others, that would be indulgence; but in Duncan, who never ceased pursuing art, love was closely connected to her art. Love gave her extraordinary artistic energy, and even the process of Duncan's love itself had formed an art. At eleven, Duncan fell in love for the first time. Afterwards, her painful loves came one after another. Her romance with set designer Craig gave her two adorable children; her romance with billionaire Singer gave her a boy who died shortly after birth; she also had a romance with the talented sculptor Rodin in Paris; at forty-four, Duncan went to Moscow and fell in love with the twenty-six-year-old poet Yesenin, quickly married him, and two years later, the mentally broken Yesenin cut his wrist and hanged himself in a hotel.
Love itself is an art. In her short forty-nine-year life, Duncan tirelessly pursued it. Her dance was brilliant, but she never obtained her love.
If we say that education in ancient society could not be separated from school education, then art education might be different. The young Duncan extremely disliked the school education that suppressed her spirit. She hated those ignorant and incompetent teachers and dropped out. From then on, she never received any formal school education. However, the artist's talent brought superhuman intelligence to Duncan. This beautiful woman crossed the Atlantic from America to Europe and conquered the European upper class with her genius dance skills. She quickly learned German and French. Duncan admired the free art of ancient Greece, and she traveled several times to Greece and Rome to study ancient dance art. She was obsessed with Greek history and mythology. She never stopped reading. Her whole body was filled with an artistic atmosphere, and finally, the words expressed by her own pen were ethereal and spiritual. The Duncan in these words was no longer a worldly person, but a dancing goddess standing on the peak of Greece.
Duncan was born poor but fought her way into the social circle of the upper class. Her art couldn't exist without rich people, but deep down, she was full of rebellion against secular traditions. That idealistic blood flowed continuously in her until death. Duncan hoped to change the status quo, but she couldn't endure the impact of poverty on her heart. She once helped refugees in Albania with her brother, but soon Duncan couldn't face the shock of poverty and left. The idealistic personality and the harsh reality constantly tormented Duncan. Only dance could let her transcend human affairs. Duncan detested the hypocrisy and conservatism of the upper class, but she had to maneuver in their circles. Duncan's romance with billionaire Singer was the most typical. Duncan needed large sums of money to support her dance school, and that's when she met Singer. But deep down, she always yearned for an idealized world view - no poverty, no hunger. Her dance "La Marseillaise" passionately expressed her feelings towards revolution. How could the big capitalist Singer like revolution? Their relationship ended unhappily. Art for revolution, Duncan eventually came to Soviet Union, the revolutionary holy land of the world.
Love blows and life hardships continued endlessly. Duncan could never find her own love. She changed lovers like revolving doors, but her heart kept wandering, finding no home. An artistic life made Duncan forever different from ordinary women. She relentlessly pursued her ideals. In Greece, she even bought a hill and started building her own Duncan Temple. After becoming famous, Duncan earned a lot, but her spending was astonishing. She had no concept of money. From being poor to rich, and then rich to poor again, by the end of her life while writing her autobiography in Paris, she was actually using a rented typewriter. It's not hard to see from her own descriptions that Duncan suffered from severe depression, especially after her two children died in a car accident in 1913. Hallucinations often occurred, so much so that she preferred to stay alone in a villa with dozens of rooms. Duncan became increasingly extraordinary.
After Yesenin's self-mutilation, Duncan gradually lost interest in life.
Lin Yutang, after reading "The Duncan Autobiography," was immediately captivated by this American woman. He said: "We read this book as if seeing a talented woman's happiness, sincerity, frustration, pain, wry smiles, blood and tears. This is Duncan's lament in her old age, and also the lament of all idealists."
On September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was wearing the long red scarf she wore during her performance of "La Marseillaise." The scarf got caught in the wheel of the car she was riding in, and she died instantly.