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= Lu_Xun =
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Introduction
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Lu Xun (, ; 25 September 188119 October 1936), pen name of Zhou
Shuren, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer. A leading figure of
modern Chinese literature, he wrote in both vernacular and literary
Chinese as a novelist, literary critic, essayist, poet, translator and
political commentator, known for his satirical, acerbic tone and
critical reflections on Chinese history and culture.
Lu was born into a declining family of landlords and scholar-officials
in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Although he initially aspired to take the
imperial examinations, his family’s limited financial means compelled
him to attend government-funded schools that offered a "Western-style
education." After graduation, Lu pursued medical studies at Tohoku
University in Japan but eventually dropped out, turning his attention
to literature. Financial difficulties forced his return to China,
where he taught at various secondary schools and colleges before
taking a position at the Ministry of Education of the Republic of
China.
Lu pioneered the New Culture Movement by publishing the first novel in
vernacular Chinese, 'Diary of a Madman,' in 1918. He gained prominence
through his political writings in 'La Jeunesse' following the May
Fourth Movement in 1919. From the late 1920s onward, Lu became
increasingly engaged with Marxist thought and leftist politics. In the
1930s, he served as the nominal leader of the League of Left-Wing
Writers in Shanghai. After 1949, he was canonized by the People’s
Republic of China.
Early life
============
Lu Xun was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. As was common before the 20th
century, Lu used several names. His birth name was "Zhou Zhangshou"
(). His courtesy name was "Yushan" (), which he later changed to
"Yucai" (). In 1898, before he went to the Jiangnan Naval Academy, he
took the given name "Shuren" (), which figuratively means "to be an
educated man". The name "Lu Xun", by which he is most well known
internationally, was a pen name chosen upon the initial publishing of
his story "Diary of a Madman" in 1918.
By the time Lu Xun was born, the Zhou family had been prosperous for
centuries, and had become wealthy through landowning, pawnbroking, and
by having several family members promoted to government positions. His
paternal grandfather, Zhou Fuqing, was appointed to the Imperial
Hanlin Academy in Beijing, the highest position possible for aspiring
civil servants at that time.
Zhou's mother was a member of the same landed gentry class as Lu Xun's
father, from a slightly smaller town in the countryside (Anqiaotou,
Zhejiang; a part of Tongxiang). Because formal education was not
considered socially appropriate for girls, she had not received any
education, but she still taught herself how to read and write. The
surname Lu () was the same as his mother's.
Lu's early education was based on the Confucian classics, in which he
studied poetry, history, and philosophy--subjects which, he later
reflected, were neither useful nor interesting to him. Instead, he
enjoyed folk stories and opera, including the mythological narratives
of the 'Classic of Mountains and Seas' and the ghost stories told to
him by a servant when he was a child.
By the time Lu was born, his family's prosperity had already been
declining. His father, Zhou Boyi, had been successful at passing the
county-level imperial examinations, the route to wealth and social
success in imperial China, but was unsuccessful in writing the more
competitive provincial-level examinations (the 'juren' exam). In 1893
Zhou Boyi was discovered attempting to bribe an examination official.
Lu Xun's grandfather was implicated, and was arrested and sentenced to
beheading for his son's crime. The sentence was later commuted, and he
was imprisoned in Hangzhou instead.
After the affair, Zhou Boyi was stripped of his position in the
government and forbidden to ever again write the civil service
examinations. The Zhou family only prevented Lu's grandfather from
being executed through regular, expensive bribes to authorities, until
he was finally released in 1901.
After the family's attempt at bribery was discovered, Zhou Boyi
engaged in heavy drinking and opium use and his health declined. Local
Chinese doctors attempted to cure him through a series of expensive
quack prescriptions, including monogamous crickets, sugar cane that
had survived frost three times, ink, and the skin from a drum. Despite
these expensive treatments, Zhou Boyi died of an asthma attack in
1896, at the age of 35. He might have suffered from dropsy.
Education
===========
Lu Xun half-heartedly participated in the first, district-level civil
service examination in 1898, but then abandoned pursuing a traditional
Confucian education or career. He intended to study at a prestigious
school, the "Seeking Affirmation Academy", in Hangzhou, but was forced
by his family's poverty to instead study at the "Jiangnan Naval
Academy", a tuition-free military school in Nanjing.
As a consequence of Lu's decision to attend a military school
specializing in Western education, his mother wept, he was instructed
to change his name to avoid disgracing his family, and some of his
relatives began to look down on him. Lu attended the Jiangnan Naval
Academy for half a year, and left after it became clear that he would
be assigned to work in an engine room, below deck, which he considered
degrading. He later wrote that he was dissatisfied with the quality of
teaching at the academy.
After leaving the school, Lu sat for the lowest level of the civil
service exams, and finished 137th of 500. He intended to sit for the
next-highest level, but became upset when one of his younger brothers
died, and abandoned his plans.
Lu Xun transferred to another government-funded school, the "School of
Mines and Railways", and graduated from that school in 1902. The
school was Lu's first exposure to foreign literature, philosophy,
history, and science, and he studied English and German intensively.
Some of the influential authors that he read during that period
include T. H. Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Yan Fu, and Liang Qichao. His
later social philosophy may have been influenced by several novels
about social conflict that he read during the period, including
'Ivanhoe' and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.
He did very well at the school with relatively little effort, and
occasionally experienced racism directed at him from resident Manchu
bannermen. The racism he experienced may have influenced his later
sense of Han Chinese nationalism. After graduating Lu Xun planned to
become a foreign doctor.
In 1902, Lu Xun left for Japan on a Qing government scholarship to
pursue an education in foreign medicine. After arriving in Japan he
attended the Kobun Institute, a preparatory language school for
Chinese students attending Japanese universities. After encouragement
from a classmate, he cut off his queue that Han Chinese were obliged
to wear at the time, and practiced jujutsu in his free time. He had an
ambiguous attitude towards Chinese revolutionary politics during the
period, and it is not clear whether he joined any of the revolutionary
parties that were popular among Chinese expatriates in Japan at that
time, such as the Tongmenghui. He experienced anti-Chinese racism, but
was simultaneously disgusted with the behaviour of some Chinese who
were living in Japan. His earliest surviving essays, written in
Literary Chinese, were published while he was attending this school,
and he published his first Chinese translations of famous and
influential foreign novels, including Jules Verne's 'From the Earth to
the Moon' and 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'.
In 1904, Lu began studying at the Sendai Medical Academy in northern
Honshu, but remained there for less than two years. He generally found
his studies at the school tedious and difficult, partially due to his
imperfect Japanese. While studying in Sendai he befriended one of his
professors, Fujino Genkurō, who helped him prepare class notes.
Because of their friendship Lu was accused by his classmates of
receiving special assistance from Fujino. Lu later recalled his mentor
affectionately in the essay "Mr Fujino", published in 'Dawn Blossoms
Plucked at Dusk'. The essay has since become one of his most widely
renowned works, and is read in the Chinese middle school curriculum.
Fujino later reciprocated Lu's respect in an obituary written for Lu
after his death in 1937.
While Lu Xun was attending medical school, the Russo-Japanese War
(1904-1905) broke out. Part of the war was fought on disputed Chinese
land. Lantern slides used in the classroom also featured news items.
One news slide showed a public execution of a Chinese prisoner being
executed by the Japanese military for being an alleged Russian spy.
The on-lookers shown in the slide were mainly Chinese, and Lu was
shocked by what he viewed as their complete apathy. In his preface to
'Nahan', the first collection of his short stories, Lu explained how
viewing this scene influenced him to quit studying Western medicine,
and to become a literary physician to what he perceived to be China's
spiritual problems instead:
At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time,
but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands
tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were
gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as
anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that
spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption,
the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese
military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public
example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the
spectacle.
In March 1906, Lu Xun abruptly and secretly terminated his pursuit of
the degree and left college. At the time he told no one. After
arriving in Tokyo he made sure that the Chinese embassy would not
cancel his scholarship and registered at the local German Institute,
but was not required to take classes there. He began to read
Nietzsche, and wrote a number of essays in the period that were
influenced by his philosophy.
In June 1906, Lu's mother heard a rumor that he had married a Japanese
girl and had a child with her, and feigned illness as a pretext to ask
Lu to return home, where she would then force him to take part in an
arranged marriage she had agreed to several years before. The girl,
Zhu An, had little in common with Lu, was illiterate, and had been
subject to foot binding. Lu Xun married her, but they never had a
romantic relationship. Despite that fact, Lu took care of her material
needs for the rest of his life. Several days after the ceremony Lu
sailed back to Japan with his younger brother, Zhou Zuoren, and left
behind his new wife.
After returning to Japan he took informal classes in literature and
history, published several essays in student-run journals, and in 1907
he briefly took Russian lessons. He attempted to found a literary
journal with his brother, 'New Life', but before its first publication
its other writers and its financial backers all abandoned the project,
and it failed. In 1909 Lu and his brother published their translations
of Western fiction, including Edgar Allan Poe, as 'Tales from Abroad',
but the book sold only 41 copies of the 1,500 copies that were
printed. The publication failed for many reasons: it was only sold in
Tokyo, which did not have a large Chinese population, and in a single
silk shop in Shanghai. Additionally, Lu wrote in Literary Chinese,
which was very difficult for ordinary people to read.
Early career
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Lu intended to study in Germany in 1909, but did not have sufficient
funds, and was forced to return home. Between 1909 and 1911 he held a
number of brief teaching positions at local colleges and secondary
schools that he felt were unsatisfying, partly to support his brother
Zuoren's studies in Japan.
Lu spent these years in traditional Chinese literary pursuits:
collecting old books, researching pre-modern Chinese fiction,
reconstructing ancient tombstone inscriptions, and compiling the
history of his native town, Shaoxing. He explained to an old friend
that his activities were not "scholarship", but "a substitute for
'wine and women'". In his personal letters he expressed disappointment
about his own failure, China's political situation, and his family's
continuing impoverishment.
In 1911 he returned to Japan to retrieve his brother, Zuoren, so that
Zuoren could help with the family finances. Zuoren wanted to remain in
Japan to study French, but Lu wrote that "French... does not fill
stomachs". He encouraged another one of his brothers, Jianren, to
become a botanist. He began to drink heavily, a habit he continued for
the rest of his life. In 1911 he wrote his first short story,
'Nostalgia', but he was so disappointed with it that he threw it away.
Zuoren saved it, and had it successfully published two years later
under his own name.
In February 1912, shortly after the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the
Qing dynasty and was followed by the founding of the Republic of
China, Lu gained a position at the national Ministry of Education. He
was hired in Nanjing, but then moved with the ministry to Beijing,
where he lived from 1912 to 1926. At first, his work consisted almost
completely of copying books, but he was later appointed Section Head
of the Social Education Division, and eventually to the position of
Assistant Secretary. Two of his major accomplishments in office were
the renovation and expansion of the National Library of China in
Beijing, the establishment of the Natural History Museum, and the
establishment of the Library of Popular Literature.
Together with Qian Daosun and Xu Shoushang, he designed the Twelve
Symbols national emblem in 1912.
Between 1912 and 1917 he was a member of an ineffectual censorship
committee, informally studied Buddhist sutras, lectured on fine arts,
wrote and self-published a book on the history of Shaoxing, and edited
and self-published a collection of folk stories from the Tang and Song
dynasties. He collected and self-published an authoritative book on
the work of an ancient poet, Ji Kang, and wrote 'A Brief History of
Chinese Fiction', a work which, because traditional scholars had not
valued fiction, had little precedent in China. After Yuan Shikai
declared himself the Emperor of China in 1915, Lu was briefly forced
to participate in rituals honoring Confucius, which he ridiculed in
his diaries.
In 1917, an old friend of Lu's, Qian Xuantong, invited Lu to write for
'New Youth', a radical populist literary magazine that had recently
been founded by Chen Duxiu, which also inspired a great number of
younger writers such as Mao Dun. At first Lu was skeptical that his
writing could serve any social purpose. He told Qian: "Imagine an iron
house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people
fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know
since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of
death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers,
making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do
you think you are doing them a good turn?" Qian replied, "But if a few
awake, you can't say that there is no hope of destroying the iron
house." Shortly afterwards, in 1918 Lu wrote the first short story
published in his name, "Diary of a Madman", for the April 2, 1918
magazine issue.
Lu recounted the conversation in his short story collection, 'Call to
Arms'. It is widely known in China as a metaphor for the traditional
Chinese cultural values and norms that Lu opposed.
After the publication of "Diary of a Madman", the story was praised
for its anti-traditionalism, its synthesis of Chinese and foreign
conventions and ideas, and its skillful narration, and Lu became
recognized as one of the leading writers of the New Culture Movement.
Lu continued writing for the magazine, and produced his most famous
stories for 'New Youth' between 1917 and 1921. These stories were
collected and re-published in 'Nahan' ("'Outcry'") in 1923.
In 1919, Lu moved his family from Shaoxing to a large compound in
Beijing, where he lived with his mother, his two brothers, and their
Japanese wives. This living arrangement lasted until 1923, when Lu had
a falling out with his brother, Zuoren, after which Lu moved with his
wife and mother to a separate house. Neither Lu nor Zuoren ever
publicly explained the reason for their disagreement, but Zuoren's
wife later accused Lu of making sexual advances towards her. Some
writers have speculated that their relationship may have worsened as a
result of issues related to money, that Lu walked in on Zuoren's wife
bathing, or that Lu had an inappropriate "relationship" with Zuoren's
wife in Japan that Zuoren later discovered. After the falling out with
Zuoren, Lu became depressed.
In 1920, Lu began to lecture part-time at several colleges, including
Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing Women's
College, where he taught traditional fiction and literary theory. His
lecture notes were later collected and published as 'A Brief History
of Chinese Fiction'. He was able to work part-time because he only
worked at the Education Ministry three days a week for three hours a
day. In 1923 he lost his front teeth in a rickshaw accident, and in
1924 he developed the first symptoms of tuberculosis. In 1925 he
founded a journal, 'Wilderness', and established the "Weiming Society"
in order to support young writers and encourage the translation of
foreign literature into Chinese.
In the 20 years after the 1911 revolution there was a flowering of
literary activity with dozens of journals. The goal was to reform the
Chinese language to make universal education possible. Lu Xun was an
active participant. His greatest works, such as "Diary of a Madman"
and 'Ah Q', exemplify this style of "peasant dirt literature" (). The
language is fresh and direct. The subjects are country peasants.
In 1925, Lu began what may have been his first meaningful romantic
relationship, with one of his students at the Beijing Women's College,
Xu Guangping. In March 1926 there was a mass student protest against
the warlord Feng Yuxiang's collaboration with the Japanese. The
protests degenerated into a massacre, in which two of Lu's students
from Beijing Women's College were killed. Lu's public support for the
protesters forced him to flee from the local authorities. Later in
1926, when the warlord troops of Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu took over
Beijing, Lu left northern China and fled to Xiamen.
After arriving in Xiamen, later in 1926, Lu began teaching at Xiamen
University, but was disappointed by the petty disagreements and
unfriendliness of the university's faculty. During the short time he
lived in Xiamen, Lu wrote his last collection of fiction, 'Old Tales
Retold', which would not be published until several years later, and
most of his autobiography, published as 'Dawn Blossoms Plucked at
Dusk'. He also published a collection of prose poetry, entitled 'Wild
Grass'.
In January 1927, he and Xu moved to Guangzhou, where he was hired as
the head of the Chinese literature department at Sun Yat-sen
University. His first act in his position was to hire Xu as his
personal assistant, as well as Xu Shoushang, one of his old classmates
from Japan, as a lecturer. While in Guangzhou, he edited numerous
poems and books for publication, and served as a guest lecturer at
Whampoa Academy. Through his students, he established connections
within both the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
After the Shanghai massacre in April 1927, he attempted to secure the
release of several students through the university, but failed. His
failure to save his students led him to resign from his position at
the university, and he left for the Shanghai International Settlement
in September 1927. By the time he left Guangzhou, he was one of the
most famous intellectuals in China.
In 1927 Lu was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature, for the
short story 'The True Story of Ah Q', despite a poor English
translation and annotations that were nearly double the size of the
text. Lu rejected the possibility of accepting the nomination. Later,
he renounced writing fiction or poetry in response to China's
deteriorating political situation and his own poor emotional state,
and restricted himself to writing argumentative essays.
Later career
==============
In 1929, he visited his mother, and reported that she was pleased at
the news of Guangping's pregnancy. Xu Guangping gave birth to a son
named Haiying on 27 September. She was in labor with the baby for 27
hours. The child's name meant simply "Shanghai infant". His parents
chose the name thinking that he could change it himself later, but he
never did so. Haiying was Lu Xun's only child.
After moving to Shanghai, Lu rejected all regular teaching positions
(though he sometimes gave guest lectures at different campuses), and
for the first time was able to make a living solely as a professional
writer, with a monthly income of roughly 500 yuan. He was also
appointed by the government as a "specially appointed writer" by the
national Ministry of Higher Education, which secured him an additional
300 yuan per month.
He began to study and identify with Marxist politics, made contact
with local CCP members, and became involved in literary disputes with
other leftist writers in the city. In 1930 Lu became one of the
co-founders of the League of Left-Wing Writers, but shortly after he
moved to Shanghai other leftist writers accused him of being "an evil
feudal remnant", the "best spokesman of the bourgeoisie", and "a
counterrevolutionary split personality". The League continued in
various forms until 1936, when the constant disputes among its members
led the CCP to dissolve it.
In January 1931, the Kuomintang (KMT) passed new, stricter censorship
laws, allowing for writers producing literature deemed "endangering
the public" or "disturbing public order" to be imprisoned for life or
executed. Later that month he went into hiding. In early February,
less than a month later, the KMT executed twenty-four local writers
(including five who belonged to the League) whom they had arrested
under this law.
After the execution of the "24 Longhua Martyrs" (in addition to other
students, friends, and associates), Lu's political views became
distinctly anti-KMT. In 1933 Lu met Edgar Snow. Snow asked Lu whether
there were any Ah Q's left in China. Lu responded, "It's worse now.
Now it's Ah Q's who are running the country."
Lu Xun wrote a classical Chinese poem, 'A Lament for Ms. Ding', to
commemorate Ding Ling, who on 14 May 1933 had been kidnapped from her
residence in the Shanghai international settlement by the KMT.
Despite the unfavorable political climate, Lu Xun contributed
regularly to a variety of periodicals in the 1930s, including Lin
Yutang's humor magazine 'The Analects Fortnightly', and corresponded
with writers in Japan as well as China.
Although he had renounced writing fiction years before, in 1934 he
published his last collection of short stories, 'Old Tales Retold'. In
1935, he sent a telegram to CCP forces in Shaanxi congratulating them
on the recent completion of their Long March. The CCP requested that
he write a novel about the communist revolution set in rural China,
but he declined, citing his lack of background and understanding of
the subject.
Lu was a heavy smoker, which may have contributed to the deterioration
of his health throughout his last year. By 1936 he had developed
chronic tuberculosis, and in March of that year he was stricken with
bronchial asthma and a fever. The treatment for this involved draining
300 grams of fluid in the lungs through a puncture.
From June to August, he was again sick, and his weight dropped to only
83 lb. He recovered somewhat, and wrote two essays in the fall
reflecting on mortality. These included "Death", and "This Too Is
Life". A month before his death, he wrote: "Hold the funeral
quickly... do not stage any memorial services. Forget about me, and
care about your own life - you're a fool if you don't." Regarding his
son, he wrote: "On no account let him become a good-for-nothing writer
or artist."
Death
=======
At 3:30 am on the morning of 18 October 1936, the author woke having
great difficulty breathing. Dr. Sudo, his physician, was summoned, and
Lu Xun was given injections to relieve the pain. His wife was with him
throughout that night. Lu Xun died at 5:11 am the next morning, 19
October. Lu's remains were interred in a mausoleum within Lu Xun Park
in Shanghai. Mao Zedong later made the calligraphic inscription above
his tomb.
He was survived by his son, Zhou Haiying.
Legacy
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Lu Xun has been described by Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe as "the
greatest writer Asia produced in the 20th century." Shortly after Lu
Xun's death, Mao Zedong called him "the saint of modern China", but
used his legacy selectively to promote his own political goals. In
1942, he quoted Lu out of context to tell his audience to be "a
willing ox" like Lu Xun was, but told writers and artists who believed
in freedom of expression that, because CCP areas were already
liberated, they did not need to be like Lu Xun. After the People's
Republic of China was established in 1949, CCP literary theorists
portrayed his work as orthodox examples of communist literature, yet
every one of Lu's close disciples from the 1930s was purged. Mao
admitted that, had Lu survived until the 1950s, he would "either have
gone silent or gone to prison".
Party leaders depicted him as "drawing the blueprint of the communist
future" and Mao Zedong defined him as the "chief commander of China's
Cultural Revolution," although Lu did not join the party. During the
1920s and 1930s Lu Xun and his contemporaries often met informally for
free-wheeling intellectual discussions, but after the founding of the
People's Republic in 1949 the Party sought more control over
intellectual life in China, and this type of intellectual independence
was suppressed, often violently.
Finally, Lu Xun's satirical and ironic writing style itself was
discouraged, ridiculed, then as often as possible destroyed. In 1942,
Mao wrote that "the style of the essay should not simply be like Lu
Xun's. [In a Communist society] we can shout at the top of our voices
and have no need for veiled and round-about expressions, which are
hard for the people to understand." In 2007, some of his bleaker works
were removed from school textbooks. Julia Lovell, who has translated
Lu Xun's writing, speculated that "perhaps also it was an attempt to
discourage the youth of today from Lu Xun's inconveniently
fault-finding habits."
During the Cultural Revolution, the CCP both hailed Lu Xun as one of
the fathers of communism in China, yet ironically suppressed the very
intellectual culture and style of writing that he represented. Some of
his essays and writings are now part of the primary school and middle
school compulsory curriculum in China.
Lu completed volumes of translations, notably from Russian. He
particularly admired Nikolai Gogol and made a translation of 'Dead
Souls'. His own first story's title, "Diary of a Madman", was inspired
by Gogol's story of the same name. As a left-wing writer, Lu played an
important role in the development of modern Chinese literature. His
books were and remain highly influential and popular today, both in
China and internationally. Lu Xun's works appear in high school
textbooks in both China and Japan. He is known to Japanese by the name
Rojin (; ).
Because of his leftist political involvement and the role his works
played in the subsequent history of the People's Republic of China, Lu
Xun's works were banned in Taiwan until the late 1980s. He was among
the early supporters of the Esperanto movement in China.
Lu Xun's importance to modern Chinese literature lies in the fact that
he contributed significantly to nearly every modern literary medium
during his lifetime. He wrote in a clear lucid style, which was to
influence many generations, in stories, prose poems and essays. Lu
Xun's two short story collections, 'Nahan' ('Call to Arms') and
'Panghuang' ('Wandering'), are often acclaimed as classics of modern
Chinese literature. Lu Xun's translations were important at a time
when foreign literature was seldom read, and his literary criticisms
remain acute and persuasively argued.
Lu Xun was also a leader of the Woodcut Movement in China (1930-1950)
and widely recognized as a pioneer of the rise of the woodcut print in
China. After encountering new printmaking techniques in Japan, Lu
embraced the art form, envisioning it as a medium to promote social
change and "an alternative socialist road to art." Through writings,
lectures, and woodcut print publications, Lu Xun was instrumental in
inspiring a generation in China towards the black-and-white woodcut.
The work of Lu Xun has also received attention outside China. In 1986,
Fredric Jameson cited "Diary of a Madman" as the "supreme example" of
the "national allegory" form that all Third World literature takes.
Gloria Davies compares Lu Xun to Nietzsche, saying that both were
"trapped in the construction of a modernity which is fundamentally
problematic". According to Leonardo Vittorio Arena, Lu Xun cultivated
an ambiguous standpoint towards Nietzsche, a mixture of attraction and
repulsion, the latter because of Nietzsche's excesses in style and
content.
* A major literature prize in China, the Lu Xun Literary Prize is
named after him.
* Asteroid (233547) 2007 JR27 was named after him.
* A crater on Mercury is named after him.
* The artist Shi Lu chose the second half of his pen name to reflect
his admiration for Lu Xun.
Style and thought
======================================================================
Lu Xun was a versatile writer. He wrote using both traditional Chinese
conventions and 19th century European literary forms. His style has
been described in equally broad terms, conveying both "sympathetic
engagement" and "ironic detachment" at different moments. Particularly
in his early novellas, Lu wrote about characters who were weak,
indecisive, frustrated, and largely the victims of oppressive Chinese
culture.
His essays are often very incisive in his societal commentary, and in
his stories his mastery of the vernacular language and tone make some
of his literary works (like "The True Story of Ah Q") hard to convey
through translation. In them, he frequently treads a fine line between
criticizing the follies of his characters and sympathizing with those
very follies. Lu Xun was a master of irony and satire (as can be seen
in "The True Story of Ah Q") and yet could also write impressively
direct prose ("My Old Home", "A Little Incident").
Lu Xun is typically regarded by Mao Zedong as the most influential
Chinese writer who was associated with the May Fourth Movement. He
produced harsh criticism of social problems in China, particularly in
his analysis of the "Chinese national character". He was sometimes
called a "champion of common humanity".
Lu Xun felt that the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 had been a failure. In
1925 he opined, "I feel the so-called Republic of China has ceased to
exist. I feel that, before the revolution, I was a slave, but shortly
after the revolution, I have been cheated by slaves and have become
their slave." He even recommended that his readers heed the critique
of Chinese culture in 'Chinese Characteristics' by the missionary
writer Arthur Smith. His disillusionment with politics led him to
conclude in 1927 that "revolutionary literature" alone could not bring
about radical change. Rather, "revolutionary men" needed to lead a
revolution using force. In the end, he experienced profound
disappointment with the new Nationalist government, which he viewed as
ineffective and even harmful to China.
Lu contended that "[i]f Chinese characters are not exterminated, there
can be no doubt that China will perish."
Bibliography
======================================================================
Lu Xun's works became known to English readers as early as 1926 with
the publication in Shanghai of 'The True Story of Ah Q', translated by
George Kin Leung, and more widely beginning in 1936 with an anthology
edited by Edgar Snow and Nym Wales 'Living China, Modern Chinese Short
Stories,' in which Part One included seven of Lu Xun's stories and a
short biography based on Snow's talks with Lu Xun. However, there was
not a complete translation of the fiction until the four-volume set of
his writings, which included 'Selected Stories of Lu Hsun' translated
by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. Another full selection was William
A. Lyell's 'Diary of a Madman and Other Stories' (Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 1990). In 2009, Penguin Classics published a complete
translation by Julia Lovell of his fiction, 'The Real Story of Ah-Q
and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun', which the
scholar Jeffrey Wasserstrom said "could be considered the most
significant Penguin Classic ever published."
'The Lyrical Lu Xun: a Study of his Classical-style Verse'--a book by
Jon Eugene von Kowallis (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996) -
includes a complete introduction to Lu Xun's poetry in the classical
style, with Chinese characters, literal and verse translations, and a
biographical introduction which summarizes his life in relation to his
poetry.
In 2017, Harvard University Press published a book of his essays
translated by Eileen J. Cheng, titled 'Jottings under Lamplight'.
Short stories
===============
* Nostalgia (1913) (),1923, translated as 'Call to Arms' (Yang and
Yang), 'Cheering from the Sidelines' (Lyell) and 'Outcry' (Lovell):
*Diary of a Madman (), 1918
*Kong Yiji (), 1918
*Medicine (), 1919
*Tomorrow (), 1920
*An Incident (), 1920
*The Story of Hair (), 1920
*A Storm in a Teacup (), 1920
*My Old Home, also translated as "Hometown" (), 1921
* The Dragon Boat Festival, also translated as "The Double Fifth
Festival" (), 1922
* The White Light (), 1922
* The Rabbits and the Cat (), 1922
* The Comedy of the Ducks (), 1922
*Village Opera (), 1922
*Preface to 'Call to Arms', 1922
, 1926, translated as 'Wandering' (Yang and Yang), 'Wondering Where to
Turn' (Lyell) and 'Hesitation' (Lovell):
*The New Year's Sacrifice (), 1924
*In the Wine Shop, also translated as "In the Drinking House" (), 1924
*A Happy Family (), 1924
*Soap (), 1924
* The Eternal Flame, 1924
* Public Exhibition, 1925
* Old Mr. Gao, 1925
* The Misanthrope, also translated as "The Loner" (), 1925
* Regret for the Past, also translated as "Sadness", or "Regrets for
the Past" (), 1925
* Brothers, 1925
*Divorce (), 1925
(1935), translated as 'Old Tales Retold' (Yang and Yang) and 'Old
Stories Retold' (Lovell):
* Mending Heaven, 1935
*The Flight to the Moon (), 1926
* Curbing the Flood, 1935
* Gathering Vetch, 1935
*Forging the Swords (), 1926
* Leaving the Pass, 1935
* Opposing Aggression, 1934
* Resurrect the Dead, 1935
Novella
=========
*The True Story of Ah Q (), 1921
Essays
========
* "My Views on Chastity", 1918
* "What Is Required to Be a Father Today", 1919
* "Knowledge Is a Crime", 1919
* "What Happens After Nora Walks Out?" Based on a talk given at the
Beijing Women's Normal College, 26 December 1923. In Ding Ling and Lu
Hsun, 'The Power of Weakness'. The Feminist Press (2007), pp. 84-93.
* "My Moustache", 1924
* "Thoughts Before the Mirror", 1925
* "On Deferring Fair Play" (1925)
Miscellaneous
===============
* (1925), based on lectures from 1920, translated as 'A Brief History
of Chinese Fiction' (Yang and Yang, 1959)
* (), 1927, prose poems, translated as 'Wild Grass' (Yang and Yang,
2003); 'Weeds' (Turner, 2019); and 'Wild Grass' (Cheng, 2022)
*,1927-28, editor of an anthology of chuanqi, translated as 'Anthology
of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang Song Chuanqi Ji of Lu Xun' (World
Scientific, 2020)
*, 1932, a collection of essays about his youth, translated as 'Dawn
Blossoms Plucked at Dusk' (Yang and Yang, 1976) and 'Morning Blossoms
Gathered at Dusk' (Cheng, 2022)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
See also
======================================================================
* Zhou Jianren
* Lu Xun Literary Institute
* Lu Xun Literary Prize
* Lu Xun Native Place
Sources
=========
* Arena, Leonardo Vittorio. 'Nietzsche in China in the XXth Century'.
2012.
* Davies, Goria. 'Lu Xun's Revolution: Writing in a Time of Violence.'
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2013. .
* Retrieved 24 July 2014.
* Jenner, W.J.F. "Lu Xun's Last Days and after". 'The China
Quarterly'. 91. (September 1982). 424-445.
*
* Kowallis, Jon. [
https://books.google.com/books?id=DLjW2p4ojP8C 'The
Lyrical Lu Xun']. United States of America: University of Hawai'i
Press. 1996.
* Lee, Leo Ou-Fan. 'Lu Xun and His Legacy.' Berkeley: University of
California Press. 1985. .
* Lee, Leo Ou-Fan. 'Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun.'
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1987. .
* Lovell, Julia.
[
https://books.google.com/books?id=r2YebvLcwSgC&pg=PA81 'The
Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in
Literature']. United States of America: University of Hawai'i Press.
2006.
* Lovell, Julia. "Introduction". In 'Lu Xun: The Real story of Ah-Q
and Other Tales of China, The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun.' England:
Penguin Classics. 2009. .
* Lu Xun and Xu Guangping.
[
https://books.google.com/books?id=wrq5R6GZJswC&pg=PP1
'Love-letters and Privacy in Modern China: The Intimate Lives of Lu
Xun and Xu Guangping']. Ed. McDougall, Bonnie S. Oxford University
Press. 2002.
* Lyell, William A. 'Lu Hsün's Vision of Reality.' Berkeley:
University of California Press. 1976. .
* Pollard, David E. 'The True Story of Lu Xun.' Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press. 2002. .
* Sze, Arthur (Ed.) 'Chinese Writers on Writing'. Arthur Sze. Trinity
University Press. 2010.
* Veg, Sebastian. [
http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/794 "David
Pollard, The True Story of Lu Xun"]. 'China Perspectives'. 51.
January-February 2004. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
* Kaldis, Nicholas A.
[
https://books.google.com/books?id=SbfungEACAAJ&q=lu+xun+kaldis
'The Chinese Prose Poem: A Study of Lu Xun's Wild Grass (Yecao)'].
Cambria Press. 2014. .
External links
======================================================================
* [
http://web.bureau.tohoku.ac.jp/manabi/manabi6/mm6-3.htm Special
Issue about Lu Xun] at web.bureau.tohoku.ac.jp
* [
http://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/lu-xun/ Lu Xun bibliography] at
u.osu.edu/mclc/
* [
http://www.xys.org/pages/luxun.html Lu Xun webpage]
* [
http://teacher.whsh.tc.edu.tw/huanyin/mofa/l/mofa_lushung.htm
Selected works by Lu Xun]
* [
http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/lx.html A Brief Biography of Lu Xun
with Many Pictures]
* [
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-xun/index.htm Reference Archive:
Lu Xun (Lu Hsun)] at www.marxists.org
* [
http://www.pinyin.info/readings/lu_xun/writing.html 'An Outsider's
Chats about Written Language'], a long essay by Lu Xun on the
difficulties of Chinese characters
*
*
*
License
=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun
