“A Fierce Silence Falls”: Lu Xun’s "Call to Arms" (original) (raw)
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Lu Xun’s ＂Wild Grass＂: Autobiographical Moments of the Creative Self
2014
Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881-1936) has generated a vast body of academic research that continues unabated in China and internationally. His short story "Diary of a Madman" (1918) instantly transformed him into a celebrity and the hero of Chinese youth, credentials that were consolidated by a series of stories written in rapid succession, and later published as his collections Outcry 呐喊 (1922) and Hesitation 彷徨 (1926). Both collections were bestsellers in the burgeoning world of commercial publishing in China, as were his collected essays of social criticism. Lu Xun's powerful indictments of traditional culture coincided with a Nietzsche fever raging in the Chinese intellectual world during the May Fourth era 五四時期 (1915-1921). Nietzsche's notion of the Superman extolled heroic action by the individual, and called for the revaluation of all traditional values. When the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 left Chinese citizens feeling betrayed by the Western democracies, Nietzsche's ideology fused with passionate, widespread Chinese nationalism. The older generations' clear failure to deal with international issues empowered Chinese youth to seize the mantle of authority and to take center stage in pontificating about how to bring China into the modern world. Writers were the most articulate amongst the intellectuals, and inspired by Nietzsche, they saw themselves as the heroic voice of the people. They argued the case for cultural modernity and demanded a revolution in literature. Classical writings were indicted for promoting a culture that was inappropriate for modern times. It was decreed that China's new literature must be written in the vernacular language in order to reach a wider audience, and it should also deal with contemporary issues. Lu Xun's short stories addressed these criteria, but even more important was his towering intellect, incisive language and unique literary prowess. He was immediately joined by a cohort of younger writers such as Zhou Zuoren 周 作人 (1885-1967), Yu Dafu 郁達夫 (1896-1945), Mao Dun 茅盾 (1896-1981) and Guo Moruo 郭沫若 (1892-1978) whose writings together formed a critical mass that succeeded in laying the foundations of China's modern literature. Writers of that generation had received a rigorous training in classical literature, and like Lu Xun also read extensively in foreign literatures, either in the original language or in translation. Furthermore, like Lu Xun, they were known for their translations of foreign authors, including Nietzsche. 1 Rigorous training in classical 1 For political reasons the impact of Nietzsche on modern Chinese literature for many years was deliberately obscured. The first publication to emerge was an English-language study by Marián Gálik, "Nietzsche in China
Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Rd NW, Washington, DC 20008 // Washington Room 5, Exhibit Level // Chair: Alexa Alice Joubin George Washington University, Virginia Speakers: Christopher Lupke University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada Jon von Kowallis University of New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia Ping Zhu University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Nick Admussen Cornell University, New York Carlos Lin University of Pennsylvania, New York ///// One of the foremost writers in early twentieth-century China, Lu Xun is widely known for his literary works that delineate and reformulate the national spirit of Chinese people. However, to what extent can we read his works as an example that illuminates the study of world literature, which emphasizes the long-standing phenomenon of transcultural and translational practices? A hundred years have passed since Lu Xun published his “A Madman’s Diary” (1918), arguably the first modern Chinese fiction that inspired the entire May Fourth generation and beyond. What does it mean to study and teach Lu Xun in the English-speaking world during the twenty-first century in which we are faced with an ever increasing demand for a dialogue between disciplines and fields of studies? In particular, how can Lu Xun’s works shed light on the relation between world and national literatures, the connection between personal memory and national narrative, and the conversations between Sinophone studies and Chinese literature? These are the questions that this roundtable aims to explore. Christopher Lupke addresses the question of why teaching Lu Xun is essential to world literary studies and explores the possibility of teaching Lu Xun from an interdisciplinary perspective. Jon von Kowallis discusses the translations of Lu Xun’s classical-style poetry in both Chinese and English-speaking contexts. Ping Zhu analyzes issues related to gender and colonial modernity in Lu Xun’s works and reveals their pedagogical implications. Nick Admussen examines ways in which Lu Xun’s Wild Grass can be taught by emphasizing the work’s aesthetic, psychological, and political implications. Carlos Yu-Kai Lin highlights the role of Lu Xun as a literary historian whose works exemplify how a modern, Western literary form is built into and fascinated by local materials. Alexa Alice Joubin will chair the roundtable and make closing remarks on the inseparability of the studies of world and national literatures.
"Selected Stories of Lu Xun" serves as an authentic reflection of the various stages of the Chinese revolution. Lu Xun, the pioneer of China's new realist literature, was born on September 25, 1881, during a period when European imperialists were exerting influence on China, leading to the gradual transformation of the old feudal society into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial state. Despite facing extreme poverty, he managed to complete his education and pursue a medical degree in Japan. However, his strong patriotic sentiments were deeply tied to the Chinese revolution, which drove him to express his convictions powerfully through literature and join the Kuang Fu League, advocating for a democratic revolution. Throughout his career, he worked at Shaohsing Middle School, the Ministry of Education in China, and participated in various revolutionary movements.
Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 2020
Unlike Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu, among other leading intellectuals in the May Fourth New Literature Movement, Lu Xun had no experience of writing in vernacular Chinese (baihua) in his early years. Except Jules Verne’s two novels translated by Lu Xun in the 1900s, all his translations and writings before 1918 were produced in classical Chinese (wenyan), until “Diary of a Madman” (Kuangren riji) was published in May 1918. Despite the well‐known fact that Lu Xun wrote his first vernacular fiction at the quest of Qian Xuantong, the sudden and seemingly effortless change in Lu Xun’s linguistic choice remains a mystery. This article attempts to shed new light on the problem by focusing on Lu Xun’s understanding and practice of voices (sheng) in his early works. First, I explore the meaning of the term “voices of the heart” (xinsheng) in Lu Xun’s thoughts and connect it to the rendering of subjectivity in his writings and translations in the late Qing dynasty. The archaic style he chose implies, paradoxically, both his effort to deliver inner “voices of the heart” and his self‐awareness of the difficulty in conveying it. Then along this line, I try to grasp Lu Xun’s intrinsic motivation for the change in his linguistic choice. Vernacular Chinese provided Lu Xun with a channel of constructing inter‐subjectivity by appealing to a broad public, thus emancipating him from the dilemma of expressing “voices of the heart.” Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, Lu Xun’s perception and application of written language were closely interwoven with his concern for subjectivity.