Online Sinology Fortnightly: The Transcultural Formulation of Lu Xun’s Literary Discourse: From Sources of World Literature to “On the Power of Mara Poetry”

Dr. Cui Wendong is an Assistant Professor at Department of Chinese Language and History, City University of Hong Kong. His area of expertise is modern Chinese literature, with a focus on notable writers like Liang Qichao and Lu Xun. He received his PhD in Chinese Language and Literature from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and worked as a visiting fellow at Harvard-Yenching Institute. His research articles have been published in journals like Literary Review, Journal of Chinese Studies, and Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy. He has also twice been the recipient of the Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Awards.

Moderator: Dr. Chang Huilin (Postdoctoral Research Fellow of HKBU Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology)

Abstract: How Lu Xun “sought a new voice from abroad” has always piqued the curiosity of academics. This lecture explores how Lu Xun’s article “On the Power of Mara Poetry” drew on German and Japanese “world literature” sources, including literary theory and literary history, to produce its own unique literary discourse. On the one hand, Lu Xun rebuilt the dialectic of the world and the nation while incorporating the framework of the history of world literature. On the other hand, he adopted various Japanese literary theories and came up with his own interpretation of what constituted “literature”.