Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era

Coinciding with the May Fourth new cultural and literary movement, the publication of theMandarin Union Version, the vernacular Chinese translation of the Bible, in 1919 had a profound impact on the formation of modern Chinese literature. This paper examines the ways in which theUnion Versionprovided a novel source of imageries, poetic genres and worldviews for the experimentation of modern Chinese poetry during the Republican period, particularly between the 1920s and 1940s. Revering the Bible as the Holy Scripture, young Christian poetess Bing Xin (1900–99) spontaneously expressed her religious sentiments and commitment by composing a series of “sacred poems” as her own poetic response to the striking beauty of biblical images. Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), a renowned May Fourth Chinese writer and intellectual, regarded the Bible as a treasured anthology of Jewish literature and appreciated the humanistic values embodied in the teachings of Jesus. Placing the biblical references of the wilderness, Jesus's universal love and Moses's legalistic position in the forefront, Zhou Zuoren's poem“Qilu,”or “Crossroads,” captured the perplexity of his contemporary intellectuals, Zhou himself included, in their sabbathless search for cultural rejuvenation and national salvation during the transitional and tumultuous Republican era. An ardent admirer of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, Chinese modernist poet Mu Dan (1918–77) studied their poetry at the Southwest United University in Kunming during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). Imbued with biblical allusions, for instance, the fall of humankind and the loss of paradise, Mu Dan's poems, like“She de youhuo,”or “The Temptation of the Serpent,” articulate his penetrating critique of modernity. These works of poetry represent the multiple voices and diverse reactions of the early twentieth-century Chinese poets towards theUnion Versionwhich had not only firmly established its canonical status as the predominant Chinese translation of the Bible used by the Protestant Church, but also emerged as a literary tour-de-force to propel the evolution of modern Chinese poetry.

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Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era

Chinese Literature Essays Articles Reviews (CLEAR) ◽

10.2307/495488 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 156

Author(s):

William Schultz ◽

Merle Goldman

Keyword(s):

Chinese Literature ◽

Modern Chinese Literature ◽

Modern Chinese ◽

May Fourth

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Learning to Read Lu Xun, 1918–1923: The Emergence of a Readership

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s000944390200061x ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 172 ◽

pp. 1042-1064 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Eva Shan Chou

Keyword(s):

Chinese Literature ◽

Modern Chinese Literature ◽

Fourth Generation ◽

Lu Xun ◽

Learning To Read ◽

Modern Chinese ◽

The Creation ◽

May Fourth ◽

New Literature

As the first and still the most prominent writer in modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun (1881–1936) had been the object of extensive attention since well before his death. Little noticed, however, is the anomaly that almost nothing was written about Lu Xun in the first five years of his writing career – only eleven items date from the years 1918–23. This article proposes that the five-year lag shows that time was required to learn to read his fiction, a task that necessitated interpretation by insiders, and that further time was required for the creation of a literary world that would respond in the form of published comments. Such an account of the development of his standing has larger applicability to issues relating to the emergence of a modern readership for the New Literature of the May Fourth generation, and it draws attention to the earliest years of that literature. Lu Xun's case represents the earliest instance of a fast-evolving relationship being created between writers and their society in those years.

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Agents of May Fourth. Jing Yinyu, Xu Zhongnian, and the Early Introduction of Modern Chinese Literature in France

Translating Wor(l)ds - May Fourth and Translation ◽

10.30687/978-88-6969-465-3/003 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Paolo Magagnin

Keyword(s):

Chinese Literature ◽

Modern Chinese Literature ◽

Pivotal Role ◽

May Fourth Movement ◽

Early Introduction ◽

Fourth Movement ◽

Political Experience ◽

Modern Chinese ◽

Ideological Stance ◽

May Fourth

Jing Yinyu (1901-1931?) and Xu Zhongnian (1904-1981) played a pivotal role in the dissemination of modern Chinese literature in France at the turn of the 1930s. Best known as Lu Xun’s first translator into a Western language and a friend of Romain Rolland’s, Jing compiled the Anthologie des conteurs chinois modernes in 1929. In his Anthologie de la littérature chinoise. Des origines à nos jours, published in 1932, Xu also devoted a section to recent literary developments. By analyzing the nature of the two projects, the translated corpora, and their paratexts, I will describe the features of Jing’s and Xu’s dissemination of May Fourth literature in France and scrutinize their artistic and ideological stance vis-à-vis the new literary scene. Ultimately, I will attempt to pinpoint in what terms the two scholars-cum-translators’ agency contributed to foreign readers’ awareness of the cultural, social and political experience of the May Fourth Movement.

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