Innovative or Rather Traditional? Confucianising Tragedy in May Fourth China

A key aspect of the May Fourth Movement was the critical discussion of Western tragedy. While the interest in tragedy was sparked by the assumption that China lacked an analogous genre, its interpretation and adaptation to the Chinese context suggests that a traditional ‘indigenous’ filter was applied to define its supposed ‘modernity’. Through cross-comparing Chinese conceptions of beiju 悲剧 in the May Fourth era and traditional Chinese views of bei 悲, this paper will seek to show that the Chinese reception of tragedy was informed by the rejuvenation of traditional ideas rather than the introduction of purely ‘Western’ theories.

Ba Jin, “Offspring of May 4th”, Time Bomb and Utopian Impulse

Ba Jin 巴金 (1904-2005) is well-known for his adherence to anarchist ideas in his youth, which actually hides a profound utopianism characterized by a social revolution without purpose and end. By a detailed examination of A Dream on the Sea, a novel published in the beginning of 1930’s, this paper aims to rehabilitate such an utopian spirit as it formulates criticism of reality, oppressive and inegalitarian, by adopting an otherness which warns against both revanchist statism and voluntary servitude. The author’s loyalty to the legacy of May 4th will be highlighted as his work embodies an ever renewed desire for the freedom of thinking and imagining, if not of acting.

The Other Vernacular: Commoner Knowledge Culture Circa 1919

This essay complicates our understanding of the May Fourth Movement of the late 19teens by isolating a layer of culture that was integral to the era but largely forgotten in later scholarship. This cultural layer of discourse and practice intersected with two of the Movement’s most iconic projects – connecting with “the people” and establishing a vernacular language. This view from the cultural margins helps us excavate the less known byways and potentialities of what has come down to us as an epochal history. It further leads us to question the inevitability of established historical trajectories: from May Fourth populism to the mass politics of the PRC, from the vernacular movement to the linguistic form that stabilized to become baihua.

A Space for Their Voices: (Un)apologies for Translation in the May Fourth Journal New Tide

The study argues that translation in the frame space of the student journal New Tide (新潮 1919-22), was a mode of writing that legitimated the new-versus-old polarity in the May Fourth discourse. The analysis focuses on two sets of translation marginalia. One set presents the translators’ habitual apologies for the imperfection of their works. In contrast, the other set of materials shows unapologetic appropriations of foreign sources, which reveal the use of translation for the dual purposes of criticising the students’ concurrent traditional-minded Chinese intellectuals, and of validating – hence canonizing – the tenets of May Fourth.

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

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.