During the New Culture movement, Zhou Zuoren made his debut with a translation of a poem from Theocritus, an Alexandrian poet of the third century BCE. His essay, “Gushi jinyi” 古詩今譯 (An ancient poem in modern translation), was published in Xin Qingnian 新青年 (New youth) in February 1918,1 the journal that served as the mouthpiece for the movement. The essay combines an introductory passage with Zhou's translation of Theocritus's Idyll 10, based on Andrew Lang's English version.2 In his autobiography, Memoir of Zhitang, Zhou identifies this piece as his first essay written in the modern Chinese language,3 and he reproduces the entire introductory section. Notorious for habitually copying passages from both the materials he read and wrote, it is not surprising that Zhou includes this introductory part in his Memoir. Surprising, however, is that six chapters later, when discussing the essay that brought him overnight fame, “Ren de wenxue” 人的文學 (Humane literature), he mentions it only in passing, noting that it was praised by Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879–1942), who encouraged him to write more.4In 1918 Zhou Zuoren became a star among his colleagues at New Youth, thanks to the impact of “Humane Literature,” whose title served as one of the most important slogans of the May Fourth Movement. The literature prompted by the New Youth camp was precisely this “humane literature,” aiming to promote a healthy, positive existence for humanity in general and the Chinese people specifically. The essay's condemnation of the literature of ancient China and advocation of those from the West also summarizes a key agenda of the New Culture movement. It is safe to say that in the intellectual sphere of the Republican China, without “Humane Literature,” Zhou's career and legacy would be substantially different, as well as his place in the history of modern Chinese literature. But when offered an opportunity to comprehensively reflect on his career and life, and his contributions to modern Chinese literature, what he emphasizes and what he neglects prompts us to closely examine how this prominent writer—now regarded one of the founding fathers of modern Chinese literature—conjured a literary future for modern China.When examining May Fourth literature, the thinker Li Zehou famously highlights the interplay between two overarching themes: enlightenment and salvation.5 In the decades that followed, these themes became closely entangled, alternately collaborating and conflicting, shaping the literature in the making deeply marked by ideological concerns. This literature prioritized its role as an avant-garde force for the political, social transformations envisioned by Chinese intellectuals. As a result, its practical function, as C. T. Hsia bitterly observed, often came at the expense of its literary merit.6 In this chapter, I argue that Zhou Zuoren, along with others in the formative decades of modern Chinese literature, sought to imagine and construct a literary culture unburdened by the grim historical circumstances of twentieth-century China. Through their introductions and translations of the Greek poets from the sunny islands of the Aegean Sea, they breathed a sweetness of Chinese literature. 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Jingling Chen
Prism
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Jingling Chen (Sun,) studied this question.
www.synapsesocial.com/papers/69e31f1a40886becb653e85c — DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-11792263