Abstract
Chapter 4 explores the field of translation production as an aspect of social mobilization in urban China in the mid-1910s and mid-1920s, as Western ideas were being widely disseminated via a modern education system and in public culture. It examines how leading literary societies and their journals contributed to the rise of a modern intellectual discourse in China. The focus is on New Youth (Xin qingnian) – the vehicle for the literary revolution and the modern written vernacular – and Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao) - a flagship magazine of the Association for Literary Studies (Wenxue yanjiu hui), and on how the intellectuals associated with these magazines forged an avant-garde identity that became a highly desired image among their followers.
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Notes
- 1.
The journals established during the New Culture period are mostly “colleagues’ journals” (tongren zazhi). The Chinese writer and journal editor Shi Zhecun (1905–2003) (in Yu 2006: 73) summarized the key feature of these “colleagues’ journals” as the general conformity of each journal in group opinion. “One person organized a few like-minded collaborators, launched a study group or literary association and a journal….Divergence of opinion often resulted in the demise of the journal” (ibid).
- 2.
In the early May Fourth period, the Chinese translation of “realism” was xieshizhuyi, which, according to Leo Ou-fan Lee (1993: 364), “seems to give as much weight to ‘writing about’ reality as to reality itself.” The phrase “xianshizhuyi,” or literally “the doctrine of contemporary reality, for which Reality assumes almost an ontological status and the technique of writing is deemphasized” (ibid), has become widely used since the late 1920s.
- 3.
See Hu Shi’s essay “The Meaning of the New Trend of Thought” (Xin sichao de yiyi), published in New Youth in December 1919.
- 4.
Although Hockx cites the late Wang Yao as saying that the foreign language proficiency level of the members of the Association for Literary Studies should be seriously doubted, it remains to be proved how much truth there was in Wang’s statement. Even if Wang was right, the fact that the Association members jumped on the bandwagon of claiming grasp of foreign languages bespeaks the importance literary societies assigned to new knowledge.
- 5.
Timothy Weston (2004) describes in detail how Cai Yuanpei recruited New Culture avant-gardes as Peking University professors. Until the 1920s, Peking University was the leading voice of elite Chinese public opinion.
- 6.
When The Youth Magazine was launched, Chen Duxiu stated in “Regulations for Contributions” (Tougao zhangcheng) that the journal welcomed manuscript submissions, whether original or translated, and offered between 2 and 5 yuan for every thousand characters. Soon after New Youth became a tongren zazhi, it nullified the initial contribution regulations, and put the colleagues of the journal in charge of all the writing and translation. See Chen (2005).
- 7.
This was a common phenomenon in the May Fourth period. For instance, the major achievement of many of the members of the Association for Literary Studies, according to Chow (1980: 285), was the introduction of foreign literature, although they engaged in creative writing and the study of traditional Chinese literature.
- 8.
When New Youth was launched, Hu Shi urged for complete abstention from politics for at least 20 years.
- 9.
How the New Youth era was brought to an end has been a subject of great interest to historians and Sinologists. In addition to academic and political disparities among the leading members of the journal around the year 1920, the journal’s about-face and its eventual demise had its economic reasons. In March 1919, Chen Duxiu was dismissed from the post of dean of the School of Arts and Sciences of Peking University. Three months later, he was arrested for distributing “Beijing Citizens’ Manifesto” against the Beiyang warlords. While he was in jail, Hu Shi and Li Dazhao, a supporter of Chen’s communist beliefs, were engaged in an “issues versus isms” (wenti yu zhuyi) debate. After Chen Duxiu’s release from prison, his notion of “making a living by editing” resurfaced; after all, the luring salary as chief editor was important for the jobless Chen Duxiu. He took the decisive step of turning the journal into an independent enterprise and a propaganda tool, first for Marxism, to which he had become a convert, and then for the Chinese Communist Party, which he co-founded in 1921.
- 10.
The average royalties Short Story Monthly offered at the time was about 3 yuan per thousand words, with the maximum of 5 yuan. Lin Shu was given 6 yuan for every thousand words.
- 11.
In 1917, Zhang and Yun collided over the style and layout of annotating Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi), written by Pu Songling (1640–1715).
- 12.
The Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies literature, a term which Zhou Zuoren first used derisively in 1918, dominated the literary scene in China in the 1910s. In June 1914, the magazine Saturday (Libailiu) published “Superfluous Words about Publication” (Chuban zhuiyan), in which the reason for naming the journal Saturday was given – because people work on week days and the journal closes on Sunday. Why, among all the Saturday pastimes, such as going to the theatre and getting drunk at a restaurant, should people choose to read fiction? “Because getting drunk is not healthy and the theatre is noisy while reading fiction is economical, simple and happy” (in Chen and Xia 1997: 484). This emphasis on reading literature for delight in privateness ran counter to the nationalistic and enlightenment function of literature that Liang Qichao and his followers had underscored since the late 1890s. However, it catered to many readers who were disillusioned by the social unrest in the early years of the Republican era. The escapist mindset of these readers, coupled with the development of the print media, provided a boost to the popularity of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies literature. Recent Chinese scholarship has rediscovered the value of literature that was not associated with the “canon” of New Literature, such as stories of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies persuasion (e.g. Hu 2013; Hockx 2003). Many of these works coalesce traditional stylistics and foreign-derived ways of presenting life and society, approximating the “invisible utility” (wuxing de gongli) and “literature of the art of human life” (rensheng de yishupai de wenxue) that Zhou Zuoren advocated in the 1920s.
- 13.
“Special Notice of the Monthly” (Ben yuekan tebie qishi), Short Story Monthly, 11(12).
- 14.
The information has been obtained through my analysis of Index to Short Story Monthly, 1921–1931 (Xiaoshuo yuebao suoyin, 1921–1931), published by Shumu wenxian chubanshe in 1984.
- 15.
The following remarks are taken from Tang Degang’s Hu Shi’s Dictated Autobiography (Hu Shi koushu zizhuan). No information is given as to when Hu made them.
- 16.
The most notable of these essays was “Naturalism and Modern Chinese Fiction” (Ziranzhuyi yu Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo), published in August 1922.
- 17.
Attempts have been made in Chinese scholarship to associate the formation of Mao Dun’s conception of realist literature with the influence from early naturalists in Europe. For example, Li Jinmei (2009) cited French writer Emile Zola’s (1840–1902) emphasis on the teleology of literature, social engagement, and the representation of human life as contributing to Mao Dun’s literary views. In September and October 1921, Short Story Monthly launched two special issues of translated literature, namely, Russian Literary Study (Eguo wenxue yanjiu) and Literature from the Injured Nations (Bei sunhai minzu wenxue). The special issue of Literature from Injured Nations published translated literary works from nine European nations, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Finland, and Croatia. Of the ten translated stories, two were translated by Lu Xun, three by Zhou Zuoren, and the other five were by Mao Dun.
- 18.
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Chi, L. (2019). Translating New Culture into a Collective Identity. In: Modern Selfhood in Translation . New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1156-7_4
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