Lu Xun and Modern Chinese Literature in the Context of World Literature

Chinese literature has a history of at least three thousand years, but modern Chinese literature did not arise until the second decade of the twentieth century. Under the impact of world literature, Chinese literary tradition self-consciously initiated its own re-birth and completed its creative transformation into a modern literature in the family of world literatures. In the process of transformation, a number of Chinese intellectuals made pioneering contributions, but it is Lu Xun (Lu Hsun, 1881–1936) who is unanimously acknowledged as the father of modern Chinese literature. This article focuses on a few of Lu Xun's epoch-making works in the larger context of Chinese literature, critically analyzes them in relation to Western modernism and postmodern writings, and explores how his avant-gardist ways of writing played a pioneering role in transforming traditional Chinese literature into modern literature compatible with the spirit of modern times and comparable to modern, modernist, and postmodern literature of the West.