The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept: Lu Xun and the Question of ‘Fiction’ in Chinese...

Front. Lit. Stud. China 2014, 8(4): 631�651 DOI 10.3868/s010-003-014-0034-4 �

Carlos Yu-Kai LIN ( ) Department of Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0359, USA E-mail: [email protected]

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Carlos Yu-Kai LIN

The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept: Lu Xun and the Question of “Fiction” in Chinese Literature Abstract Originally derived from historical and philosophical writings, xiaoshuo is the modern Chinese term for fictional work of any length. However, how this term came to be used to translate the Western concepts of “fiction” and “novel” is a question that remains to be fully explored. This paper focuses on Lu Xun’s seminal work Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe (A brief history of Chinese fiction; 1925) so as to investigate the ways in which the Western concept of fiction is built into Lu Xun’s historicization of xiaoshuo. I argue that Lu Xun’s articulation of xiaoshuo is distinguished by his emphasis on both the term’s universality and its “Chinese-ness.” Keywords xiaoshuo, fiction, literary history, non-referentiality, evolutionism, universality

Xiaoshuo as Fiction: The Question of Translation

The question of how to conceptualize and evaluate fiction as a concept in the Chinese literary tradition has perplexed many scholars. This is especially true for those who search for a generic counterpart for the Western term “fiction” in Chinese narratives. As early as 1956, John Bishop noted in “Some Limitations of Chinese Fiction” that it might be problematic to evaluate Chinese literature according to the Western standards of fiction. He writes, “I must admit to take arbitrarily the fiction of the West as a standard against which to measure works in a wholly unrelated literature, a questionable procedure if used merely to arrive at a value judgment, but a justifiable method if used to localize and appraise the different development in comparable genres of two distinct literatures.”1 �� 1 John Bishop, “Some Limitations of Chinese Fiction,” 239.

Carlos Yu-Kai LIN 632

Although Bishop’s main argument is that Chinese fiction lacks the individual mode of story-telling and originality that are central to Western fiction, he does point out that the term “fiction” might not be the perfect conceptual tool with which to analyze works of Chinese literature. Almost twenty years later, Eugene Eoyang wrote a response to Bishop’s article, arguing that Chinese fiction and its artistic originality should be understood in the context of oral literature, since many classical Chinese stories were transmitted orally. 2 The creativity of Chinese fictional works is thus revealed in the process in which narrators constantly need to re-tell and re-create the stories to cater to different live audiences. While Bishop and Eoyang were aware of problems involved in comparing fiction in the Western and Chinese contexts, both authors still use the phrase “Chinese fiction” in framing their arguments.3 The unreflective use of xiaoshuo as a translation for “fiction” has led to an inadequate understanding of the connection between the two genres. The connection between the two seems even more tenuous when one considers the fact that, even in the Western context, fiction was not really considered a literary concept until the eighteenth century. At that time, the rise of the middle class was accompanied by a burgeoning publishing industry and the appearance of the “novelist” as a profession.4 Indeed, even in modern English, fiction is sometimes, if not always, used as a synonym of novel and the two terms are often used interchangeably even in some academic writings.5 This conceptual ambiguity thus further complicates our �� 2 Eoyang argues that the tradition of oral storytelling plays a significant role in the development of Chinese fiction. Drawing from the example of the transmission of classical tales in the tenth century, Eoyang argues that early Chinese storytellers often performed for a largely illiterate audience, and they constantly needed to recast their stories in a shorter and serialized framework, using repeated and easily-recitable sentential structures to appeal to live audiences. The so-called lack of artistic originality of Chinese fiction is thus more of a result of the need to accommodate the audience. It was not until much later that Chinese fictional works were circulated through publication which requires a group of readers. The transition from oral to written transmission, Eoyang argues, should not be downplayed. Eugene Eoyang, “A Taste for Apricots: Approaches to Chinese Fiction,” 53–69. See also Andrew H. Plaks, 1977, 309–52. 3 Although Eoyang emphasizes the qualitative difference between fiction in the West and fiction in the Chinese context, he still equates the English concept of fiction with the Chinese term xiaoshuo without calling into question this translation. He writes, “Hsiao shuo ᇣ䁾, ‘small talks,’ seems to put fiction in its place” (sic.). Eugene Eoyang, “A Taste for Apricots: Approaches to Chinese Fiction,” 53. 4 Catherine Gallagher, “The Rise of Fictionality,” 338. 5 Although from a modern critic’s point of view, “fiction” is divided into different forms such as the novel, novella, and short story, these categories are modern inventions that result from the rise of modern publishing industry and the growth of a wide spectrum of readership. It is thus common to see contemporary writers using “fiction” as an umbrella term to refer to all fictional works. The interchangeable use of “fiction” and the novel (and certainly other genres) is not just an issue of categorization, however, but one that is related to the changing definition of “fiction” from being a term denoting lies and counterfeit to a specific literary concept. I will discuss this in detail in the latter part of the article.

The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept 633

inquiry into the linguistic and conceptual relationship between xiaoshuo and fiction.

Historically, the Chinese definition of xiaoshuo itself is complex. During the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), xiaoshuo is listed by Ban Gu ⧁ (32–92) in Hanshu ⓶ as one of the ten schools of thought. Xiaoshuo is described as an insignificant, morally suspect form of writing and is defined as materials that are excluded from the official historical documents of the imperial court. The concept of xiaoshuo was thus originally embedded in the Chinese tradition of historiography and had little to do with the modern novel. It was not until the late nineteenth century that some reform-minded Chinese intellectuals began to construct new, “modern” meanings for the term xiaoshuo. Kang Youwei ᒋ⚎ (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao ṕଧ䍙 (1873–1929), for example, are among the first group of Chinese intellectuals to link xiaoshuo with national reform. Liang’s famous article “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” 䂪ᇣ䁾㟛㕸⊏П䮰

(On the relationship between fiction and mass management; 1902) maintains that xiaoshuo possesses an enigmatic power to transform human minds and change the fate of an entire nation. The article is an example par excellence of the way in which xiaoshuo was imbued with new meanings at the turn of the nineteenth century. In this article, Liang coins the term xin xiaoshuo (new fiction), which almost became a standard term to denote the new forms of writing and literary theory that emerged during the late Qing period.

Contemporary scholars generally agree that Liang’s creation of the term xin xiaoshuo marks the beginning phase in the development of modern Chinese fiction and literature in general. 6 However, Liang’s conceptualization of xiaoshuo is quite different from the prevailing contemporary understanding of fiction as he saw xiaoshuo as a primarily political tool for disseminating ideological messages and did not explore the development of xiaoshuo as a literary or aesthetic concept. An examination of how the ancient Chinese term xiaoshuo came to be used to translate the modern concept of fiction is thus needed to further our understanding of what we now call “modern Chinese fiction.”

The question of how xiaoshuo come to translate “fiction” is further complicated by a consideration of the cultural exchange between Japan and China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is very likely that the classical Chinese term was first appropriated by Japanese scholars as a neologistic term to translate the Western concept of the novel and was only later �� 6 For a further discussion of the beginnings of modern Chinese literature, see David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911, 16. See also Chen Pingyuan, Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian: Qingmo Minchu xiaoshuo yanjiu, 1–25.


adopted by Chinese intellectuals for the same purpose. Various scholars, including Federico Masini and Lydia Liu, have discussed this issue.7 While the translingual connection, to borrow Liu’s parlance, between modern Japanese and Chinese is an important subject, this paper focuses on two other questions: First, how does the Chinese term xiaoshuo articulate the Western concept of fiction? Second, what linguistic and conceptual assumptions underlie the merging of a traditional Chinese concept such as xiaoshuo and a modern (Western) literary notion such as fiction?

In this vein, one might consider the huge number of translated foreign novels that circulated in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, these translations of Western literary works spurred Chinese intellectuals’ interest in developing new ways of understanding literature. Lin Shu ᵫ㋧’s Bali Chahua nü yishi Ꮘ咢㤊㢅ཇ䙎џ (Past stories of the Camellia-woman of Paris), a translation of Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias, for example, met with unexpected success when it was published in 1898. Lin Shu’s translation influenced the development of Chinese literature in the early twentieth century.8 Over the course of Lin Shu’s life, he and his co-workers translated over two hundred literary works (mostly novels) from countries such as England, France, America, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, and Japan.9 These translations may have played a role in slowly changing the way in which the term xiaoshuo was understood. However, we still need more concrete evidence that this term was being consciously used and developed as the Chinese counterpart for the Western concept of fiction, which was taken as a universal concept that could refer to literary works across different cultural regions. It is for this reason that we must begin our discussion by re-examining Lu Xun’s (1881–1936) Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe Ёᇣ䁾⬹ (the English edition of this work is entitled A �� 7 Federico Masini suggests that the Chinese term wenxue was first used by Giulio Alenio, an Italian Jesuit missionary, to translate the Western concept of literature in Alenio’s work Zhifang waiji [Record of places outside the jurisdiction of the office of geography] as early as 1623. Lydia Liu argues that the translation of literature as wenxue might have been accomplished later by a nineteenth century American missionary. She suggests that this translation was subsequently brought to Japan and then reintroduced to China in the early twentieth century. Although Liu does not explain who this American missionary was and how this translation traveled first to Japan and then back to China, she describes this process as “a round-trip diffusion” to underscore the cross-cultural and trans-lingual connection between modern Chinese and Japanese. Tsubouchi Shǀyǀ’s Shǀsetsu Shinzui [The essence of the novel], published in 1885, is generally considered the seminal work in transforming the Chinese compound xiaoshuo (pronounced as shǀsetsu in Japanese) into a widely accepted term for “novel” in the Japanese context. 8 The so-called Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School, which was active in the early Republican period, may be seen as a literary school that continued the writing style of Lin Shu’s Bali Chahua nü yishi. 9 For more information on Lin Shu, see Michael Gibbs Hill’s Lin Shu, Inc.


Brief History of Chinese Fiction), which was published in 1925 and is now generally considered the first systematic study of Chinese fiction.10 Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction merits our attention since it has, in effect, created a paradigm for the study of xiaoshuo.11 From today’s point of view, it is not an exaggeration to say that any research which attempts to deal with the genealogy of xiaoshuo or fictional work in China must begin with, or at least take into account, this ground-breaking work. Indeed, Lu Xun’s work has, de facto and de jure, generated a discipline, a kind of knowledge, genre, or field of study, which, in modern scholarship on Chinese literature, is called xiaoshuo (often translated as “fiction” or “Chinese fiction”).12 The effects of this work thus cannot be underestimated.

In this paper, I begin by contextualizing Lu Xun’s work on xiaoshuo in a series of political and social changes that took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century China. I particularly analyze his appropriation of social Darwinism and use of an evolutionistic framework to define xiaoshuo as a universal, translatable concept that is nonetheless rooted in the Chinese tradition. I then investigate the ambiguous relationship between fiction and xiaoshuo, that is, the act of translation that equates the former with the later in English scholarship. My point, however, is not to reiterate that xiaoshuo and fiction stem from two different cultural traditions, thereby concluding that the two terms should not be considered equivalent to each other. Rather, I focus on the transformation of xiaoshuo from being a traditional Chinese historiographical notion to a modern literary concept characterized by its universality such as fiction. I argue that the modern definition of xiaoshuo is characterized by its double implication as both a Chinese and universal literary concept that can be readily translated to other languages. I engage in a detailed analysis of Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction to demonstrate the enigmatic connection

�� 10 Xiaoshuo is sometimes translated as “Chinese fiction,” but elsewhere it is also referred to as “prose fiction” or simply “fiction.” The inconsistency with which this term is translated into English suggests that the connection between xiaoshuo and fiction should not be taken for granted. 11 In this book, Lu Xun traces the concept of xiaoshuo from the fourth century B.C.E. all the way to the nineteenth century, providing a comprehensive trajectory for the development of xiaoshuo in the Chinese context. 12 For example, Judith Zeitlin defines xiaoshuo as “the modern Chinese term for prose fiction of any length, particularly the novel… it is likewise the modern term for prose fiction or novel in Japan and Korea.” Judith Zeitlin, “Xiaoshuo,” 249. In discussing the development of modern Chinese literature, Lydia Liu also equates xiaoshuo with fiction. Liu writes, “The Compendium [Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi] organized all literary works around these categories, which were understood to be perfectly translatable into ‘fiction,’ ‘poetry,’ ‘drama,’ and ‘familiar prose,’ respectively, in English.” Lydia H. Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937, 229.


between xiaoshuo and fiction. My analysis reveals that Lu Xun’s historicization of xiaoshuo as a literary concept specific to the Chinese tradition is inherently undermined by his understanding of fiction as a universal literary category. I aim to demonstrate that Western definitions of fiction are relevant to understanding Lu Xun’s work.

Xiaoshuo and Evolutionism

The ambiguous relationship between fiction and xiaoshuo, as discussed by Lu Xun, can first be explained through an examination of the socio-historical context in which he wrote. While historically the concept of xiaoshuo is rooted in the Chinese historiographical tradition, I argue that Lu Xun’s genealogy of xiaoshuo is closely related to ideological developments in early twentieth- century China.

Lu Xun was a firm supporter of the New Culture Movement (ca. 1915–1920s), which called for the establishment of a new Chinese culture and literature based on Western concepts such as democratic procedure, scientific methodology, and, in particular, the use of the vernacular language. In a way, the New Culture Movement provided the basis for the upsurge in Chinese nationalism in the 1920s. The escalation in nationalism was triggered by a large-scale, student- based protest against the Chinese government on May 4th, 1919, in the wake of the resolution of the Versailles Treaty, which awarded Shandong Province to Japan. The resulting nationalistic socio-cultural movement was known as the May Fourth Movement. Lu Xun’s famous writings on the problems of Chinese culture have been read as a prominent exponent of the May Fourth Movement. The May Fourth Movement can also be considered a reaction to the series of domestic and international political failures suffered by China during the late Qing and early Republican periods. After the Qing Empire was defeated in the First (1839–42) and Second Opium Wars (1856–60), some Chinese officials initiated reform measures geared towards the adoption of Western military technology. During this period, the first groups of Chinese students were sent to Japan and other foreign countries for modern education. However, these reforms, which were later known collectively as the Self-Strengthening Movement (1861–95), ultimately failed. In 1895, the Qing was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). The Treaty of Shimonoseki, which concluded the war, forced the Qing court to pay a huge indemnity, open multiple ports, and cede Taiwan and Penghu islands to Japan. The loss to Japan dealt a crushing blow to the Qing regime. The demand for political reform was voiced by several progressive intellectuals, including Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, who proposed social, military, and economic reforms. In 1898, Liang, Kang, and


others succeeded in initiating the reform, but, after only about a hundred days, a coup d'état by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi put an end to the reform movement.

In addition to the frustrating experience of dealing with the Qing court, these reform-minded Chinese intellectuals also had to contend with local warlords, who aspired to restore the Qing dynasty even after it fell and was replaced by a Republican government. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the Republic of China was repeatedly threatened by attempts at monarchical restoration. During this time, Lu Xun gradually became convinced that the eradication of what he saw as the submissive mentality of the Chinese people was a necessary precondition for reform. He decided to become a writer, and sought, through his works, to intervene the political status quo by engaging socio-cultural issues. Unlike Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei who saw literature as a passive carrier of political messages, Lu Xun’s construction of “modern Chinese literature” and a history of Chinese fiction is itself a political response to imperialism and globalization. In other words, Lu Xun came to see Chinese literature not only as a reflection of but, more importantly, an intervention in Chinese modernity.

The cultural-political context in which Lu Xun wrote complicates his understanding of xiaoshuo as a concept specific to the Chinese literary tradition. How does Lu Xun reconcile the cultural specificity of this concept with the related global idea of national literature and national identity? In other words, in constructing a literary history specific to China, how does Lu Xun account for the influence of Western literature? The answer may be found in the way in which late Qing and early Republican Chinese intellectuals appropriated certain Western concepts. Like many progressive intellectuals, Lu Xun sought to transform traditional Confucian social structures, or as described by Vera Schwarcz, “those elements of the Confucian tradition that comprised the lijiao, the cult of ritualized subordination.”13 Many May Fourth intellectuals sought for what they considered to be a more scientific and logical worldview to replace the traditional Confucian outlook.14 As a result, as elucidated by Schwarcz, these intellectuals “kept on borrowing, translating, and adopting Western ideas even as their contemporaries lapsed into increasingly fervent anti-foreignism.”15 These intellectuals were heavily influenced by Western literary and philosophical discourses. One of the most interesting examples is the concept of evolution, which appealed to many Chinese intellectuals. The Darwinian theory of �� 13 Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, 3. 14 Ibid., 97. 15 Ibid.


evolution is introduced to China through Yan Fu ಈᕽ’s translation of T. H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (1893) which introduces Darwin’s doctrine and its application to moral philosophy. Yan Fu, however, did not translate the entire book since he only focused on introducing the concept of evolution, leaving the part on ethics untouched. Not only did he change the title into Tian yan lun ⓨ

䂪 (On evolution), he also included many of his own interpretations in his translation. Yan Fu’s Tian yan lun is therefore not a rigorous translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics from the modern perspective, but a semi-original work that interprets and modifies Huxley’s explanation of Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was under this circumstance that the theory of evolution was introduced to China.16

The concept of evolution was nevertheless widely accepted by Chinese intellectuals since it is an illuminating perspective to envision a new Chinese culture. Lu Xun’s acceptance of the principles of evolutionism was closely tied to his promotion of vernacular literature and, in particular, in his construction of a history of xiaoshuo. In “The Historical Development of Chinese Fiction,” a lecture series delivered by Lu Xun in 1924, he argued as follows:

Many historians have told us that the history of mankind is evolutionary, and China is no exception. But when we look at the evolution of China, we are struck by two phenomena in particular. One is that the old returns long after the new has appeared—in other words, retrogression. The other is that the old remains long after the new has appeared—in other words, amalgamation. Does that mean evolution failed to take place? No. It just takes place at a slower pace. That’s why, for a hotheaded person like me, it feels as if ‘one day passes [as slowly as] three autumns.’ The same applies to literature and art—as well as xiaoshuo, which is a category of literature. For instance, we can still find in modern writings the dregs of the Tang and Song dynasties and even the ideas of primitive man. In my lecture today, I would like to ignore these dregs—popular as they still are—and try to find evidence of progressive development in our regressive and chaotic literature.17

From this passage, we can see that Lu Xun’s historicization of Chinese fiction is teleological and places the development of Chinese fiction within a distinct cultural context. However, Lu Xun’s historicization of Chinese fiction within an evolutionary framework complicates the establishment of an absolute distinction

�� 16 Under such a circumstance, it is hard to draw a clear line between the original Darwin’s theory of evolution and social Darwinism in the late Qing context. 17 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 393.


between Chinese history and human history in general. In attempting to establish the generic and historical specificity of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun is nevertheless compelled to imply the commonality of all human histories. As Lu Xun explains, “the history of mankind is evolutionary, and China is no exception… The same applies to literature and art—as well as xiaoshuo, which is a category of literature.”18 By framing his discussion of xiaoshuo in terms of national unity and evolutionism, Lu Xun ironically points to a possible connection between what he specifies as xiaoshuo and its counterparts in other cultural traditions. If there is a specifically Chinese genre of xiaoshuo, it is, first and foremost, embedded in a transcultural and transhistorical framework. Lu Xun describes the development of Chinese literature, “When we look at the evolution of China, we are struck by two phenomena in particular. One is that the old returns long after the new has appeared—in other words, retrogression. The other is that the old remains long after the new has appeared—in other words, amalgamation.” In light of Lu Xun’s call for a new form of Chinese literature, his reference to “the old” most likely refers to the classical language. And since Lu Xun associated the classical language with Confucian dogma, he supported the use of the vernacular language and believed that vernacular literature held the potential to revolutionize society. In this respect, “the new” is logically associated with imported (Western) modernism and nationalism. If nationalism, as Benedict Anderson has pointed out, requires the imagination of the existence of others in the distant parts of a single nation,19 it is this imagined collectivity of China as a unitary community that allows Lu Xun to naturalize the regressive and chaotic literary developments as part of the evolutionary process of China.

Lu Xun’s appropriation of evolutionism also sheds light on the way in which he transforms xiaoshuo from an ambiguous ancient term to a specific generic concept and, more importantly, from a concept specific to Chinese literature to a universal notion. According to Lu Xun, because the formation of xiaoshuo was evolutionary, the concept of xiaoshuo is necessarily connected to other concepts. This explains Lu Xun’s description of the development of Chinese literature as a process characterized by “retrogression” and “amalgamation.” Just as an organism undergoes mutation and transformation, the concept of xiaoshuo develops over time. From this perspective, the logic of evolutionism enables Lu Xun to articulate xiaoshuo as a concept that is fundamentally unique but, at the same time, inextricably connected to other literary genres that developed in different cultural contexts. The term xiaoshuo, or Zhongguo xiaoshuo, or its English translation as “Chinese fiction,” is allowed to retain its specificity

�� 18 Ibid., 393. 19 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Community: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 22–36.


without ruling out its generality. Such is the double nature of Lu Xun’s project in A Brief History of Chinese Fiction.

The Double Nature of Fiction: Exemplarity and Non-Referentiality

We also need to clarify the Western concept of fiction before we move on to investigate its connection with xiaoshuo in Lu Xun’s work. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED), fiction is defined as:

1. a. The action of fashioning or imitating… 2. Feigning, counterfeiting; deceit, dissimulation, pretence… 3. a. The action of ‘feigning’ or inventing imaginary incidents, existences, states of things, etc., whether for the purpose of deception or otherwise… b. That which, or something that, is imaginatively invented; feigned existence, event, or state of things; invention as opposed to fact… c. A statement or narrative proceeding from mere invention; such statements collectively… 4. a. The species of literature which is concerned with the narration of imaginary events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; fictitious composition.

We thus learn that, as a common noun, fiction denotes an action, or the process of acting. As implied by words “fashioning or imitating,” fiction is that which is generated anew or at least apart from whatever is considered factual. Fiction, in this sense, is a common noun that refers to any event, incident, or state of being, as long as it can be demarcated from that which is recognized as authentic. Fiction is thus an empty term that can incorporate almost anything into its definitional space. Precisely because there are numerous examples of fiction, there are no limits to fiction’s referential territory. This first axiomatic definition of fiction thus justifies its connection with any referent in any language.

However, in addition to being a common noun, fiction also creates an effect of a proper noun, whose singularity is defined by its generic identification with a specific form of literature. As the fourth definition of OED states, fiction is also “the species of literature which is concerned with the narration of imaginary events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; fictitious composition.” In other words, apart from being an inclusive signifier, fiction is also “the species of literature” (my emphasis) that refers only and specifically to a particular kind of writing prescribed by the rules of literature. The definite article (“the”) with which the fourth definition begins indicates the absoluteness of this meaning, suggesting that fiction is both a proper name and a common noun. It is a proper name when it is used to refer exclusively to the form of literature that is called fiction (“The species of literature…”), but it is also a common noun when it is


used to refer to anything (which indeed includes any form of writing) that is not to be taken as fact. Fiction, from this perspective, is both specific and universal.

In her examination of the mid-eighteenth century English novel and the rise of fictionality as a recognized literary concept, Catherine Gallagher has also discussed the double nature of fiction. Drawing upon the definitions of fiction found in the OED, Gallagher argues that, in the eighteenth century, the term “fiction” ceased to be a subcategory of dissimulation (“deceit, dissimulation, pretense”) and became a literary phenomenon (“the species of literature”).20 In order to emphasize the historical emergence of fiction as a literary form, Gallagher downplays the variety of definitions attached to fiction and reduces them to the polarized concepts of “deception” and “literature.” However, she also notes that, in eighteenth-century English novels, fiction as a literary concept is characterized by what she calls nonreferentiality: “The key mode of nonreferentiality in the novel was, and still is, that of proper name.”21 This is because, in the seventeenth-century, novelists such as Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, and others began to assume the existence of “a correspondence between a proper name in a believable narrative and an embodied individual in the world.”22 For example, Defoe asserts the existence of an individual named “Robinson Crusoe” without ruling out the possibility of this figure being merely fictional or allegorical. “The proper names do not take specific individuals as their referents, and hence none of the specific assertions made about them can be verified or falsified.”23 Moreover, since any general referent is indicated through a particular yet explicitly nonreferential character, the novels are considered realistic even though their constituents may only be imaginary.24 When viewed in this sense, nonreferentiality is a literary device that invites greater

�� 20 Gallagher writes, “As this sense of the word gained greater currency, mainly in the eighteenth century, an earlier frequent meaning of ‘deceit, dissimulation, pretense’ became obsolete. Although consistently contrasted with the veridical, fictional narration ceased to be a subcategory of dissimulation as it became a literary phenomenon. If the etymology of the word tells us anything, fiction seems to have been discovered as a discursive mode in its own right as readers developed the ability to tell it apart from both fact and (this is the key) deception.” Catherine Gallagher, “The Rise of Fictionality,” 338. 21 Ibid., 341–42. 22 Ibid., 341. 23 Ibid. Gallagher describes the novelists of eighteenth century England as follows: “What distinguished the new writers from the libelers was the insistence that the human referent of the text was a generalization about and not an extratexual, embodied instance of a ‘species.’ Certainly the novel provided imaginary instances, but it renounced reference to individual examples in the world. The fictionality defining the novel inferred in the creation of instances, rather than their mere selection, to illustrate a class of persons… The claims to truth and fiction were not in contradiction with each other; practitioners understood that the novel’s general applicability depended on the overt fictitiousness of its particulars.” Ibid., 342. 24 Ibid.


referentiality, since the referent of the story is no longer singularly referential but has become universally relatable. Nonreferentiality thus simultaneously particularizes and universalizes, specifies and pluralizes, the referent of the stories.

The Double Nature of Xiaoshuo

The definitions of fiction discussed above resonate with Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction not only because of the way in which Lu Xun translates xiaoshuo as fiction but also because of the way in which xiaoshuo as a generic concept is introduced and contextualized.25 The preface to A Brief History of Chinese Fiction provides an interesting but ironic account of Lu Xun’s impetus for composing the work. The way in which Lu Xun discusses Chinese literary history suggests interesting resonances with the definitions of fiction discussed above.

There has never been a history of Chinese fiction, other than in the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners. Although discussions of the history of Chinese fiction have recently appeared in some publications by Chinese authors, in these works the discussion of fiction generally accounts for less than one-tenth of the entire work. Hence, we still lack a detailed account of the development of Chinese fiction.26

It is striking to see that the preface to this groundbreaking work on the history of Chinese fiction begins ironically with a statement of the absence of a history of Chinese fiction. We can certainly interprets the first sentence of the work as Lu Xun’s criticism on the lack of writing on the tradition of Chinese fiction. However, if we consider the weight that this work carries in the Chinese literary history and the fact that it is often credited as the first Chinese publication on the development of Chinese fiction, we might as well try to take this preface as literally as possible and examine the potential implication of this preface.

As a work that purports to present the history of Chinese fiction, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction is supposed to be based on truth and fact. However, Lu Xun begins by negating the existence of a history of Chinese fiction, which is �� 25 Zhongguo means “Chinese” or “China,” but the translation of xiaoshuo as “fiction” or “novel” is more ambiguous, as I shall explain later. However, we should bear in mind that, in English-language scholarship, the word xiaoshuo is often used interchangeably with the term “fiction.” 26 This and subsequent quotations from Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe are based on the English edition of this work, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, which is translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, with some modifications. Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction; Lu Xun quanji, vol. 9.


exactly what the work purports to discuss. Therefore, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction in fact addresses the absence of a brief history of Chinese fiction. One might thus ask: How does Lu Xun intend to relate the history of Chinese fiction when he, at the same time, denies its existence? The only possible course of action is to invent a history of Chinese fiction, that is, to write a fictional work entitled A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. When viewed from this perspective, we might consider this work to be more of an exploration of the idea of “fiction” per se.

The ambiguous opening statement also comes with an interesting provision. That is, there are two exceptions to the statement that “there has never been a history of Chinese fiction”: First, the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners, and second, the history of Chinese fiction written by other Chinese authors in Lu Xun’s time. Lu Xun’s disregard for the latter is due to their brevity and simplicity appeared in some publications by Chinese authors, in these works the discussion of fiction generally accounts for less than one-tenth of the entire works. But Lu Xun’s disregard for the former—“the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners”—is amusing. It is as if there is a kind of inherent essence in what Lu Xun terms Zhongguo xiaoshuo, or Chinese fiction, and a historical account of Chinese fiction will not be authentic if it is not written by a Chinese author. Indeed, the use of the modifier Zhongguo (meaning “Chinese” or “China”) suggests that the term xiaoshuo should be understood in the Chinese context and thus should not be confused with the term’s generic relative in the Western tradition. However, this emphasis also suggests the opposite, that is, a correspondence between xiaoshuo and fiction outside of the Chinese context. Xiaoshuo’s combination of cultural specificity and implied universality recalls Gallagher’s discussion of referentiality and fiction in the Western context. That is, the nonreferentiality of xiaoshuo as a concept enables its application to different cultural traditions. Lu Xun’s historicization of xiaoshuo thus produces an effect that makes this term both a Chinese concept and a universal one.

Although Lu Xun is dissatisfied with the accounts of xiaoshuo written by foreign and Chinese authors, he is keenly aware of the correlation between writing and the making of history, in particular, the significance of the written word in constructing the history of Chinese fiction. The preface goes on to explore this issue:

Although this book is concerned entirely with a specific history, it only provides a rough outline. I wrote it because, when I was giving lectures on this subject three years ago, I feared that my defects as a speaker might make it difficult for my audiences to understand, and so I jotted down this outline and had it copied for my students. In order not to give the copyist too much trouble, I compressed it by using the classical language, omitting


certain examples but keeping the main outline, which I have been using ever since.

After being copied so many times, these notes are finally being printed now. Although the process of preparing the manuscript for printing has been laborious, a printed text is better suited to our purpose [of circulating this work].27

After criticizing the shortcomings of other histories of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun turns to the limitations of his own project; the work, he said, is only “a rough outline” that is characterized by condensation and omission. It is interesting to see that instead of continuing his initial statement that what he tries to account for is an absent history, Lu Xun now defines his work as an abridged version of xiaoshuo’s history. It is as if any account of the history of xiaoshuo will never be complete since this literary concept will keep on growing and developing. And yet, it is through this careful formulation of the history of xiaoshuo as a brand-new (since it has never been written) and open-ended (since what is presented here is only an outline) project that Lu Xun is able to argue for a concept of xiaoshuo that is at once specific to China and relatable to other cultural contexts.

The Ambiguity of Xiaoshuo: An Etymological Study

Lu Xun’s formulation of xiaoshuo is also distinguished by his painstaking etymological study of this ancient Chinese term. He indicates that the term xiaoshuo was first used by ancient philosopher Zhuangzi 㥞ᄤ (369 B.C.–286 B.C.), who discussed “winning honor and renown by means of xiaoshuo.” According to Lu Xun, Zhuangzi uses the expression xiaoshuo to mean the sayings of little importance that was used to achieve petty personal ends.28 Zhuangzi’s definition of xiaoshuo thus differs greatly from the way in which this term is understood today. By the first century A.D., the meaning attached to xiaoshuo gradually changed and became closer to the modern understanding of xiaoshuo. As philosopher Huan Tan ḧ䄮 (circa 43 B.C.�28 A.D.) wrote, “The writers of xiaoshuo string together odd sayings and parables to make short tales which contain matters for use in daily life.”29 Xiaoshuo is thus taken as a form of narrative that is related to social reality. Throughout the Han period, xiaoshuo was considered a trivial form of literature. According to Lu Xun, xiaoshuo �� 27 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. 28 Ibid., 1. 29 Ibid. The quotation from Huan Tan is credited to an early source which is no longer extant—Xin lun ᮄ䂪. Scholars believe that this work was written around the first century.


occupied an ambiguous position in the official documents of the Han dynasty:

Ban Gu’s [32–92] History of the Former Han Dynasty30 contains a section on literature. The third part of this section gives a brief account of works written by non-Confucian philosophers from the ancient past up to Ban Gu’s time. Ban Gu identifies ten schools of literature but comments that “only nine schools are worth reading”; the works of xiaoshuo are excluded from the official categorization scheme. A separate entry listing fifteen works of xiaoshuo is nevertheless appended at the end of this section.31

Xiaoshuo is both included in and excluded from Ban Gu’s categorization scheme; it is recognized as a form of literary narrative, but is explicitly singled out as inferior in comparison with other literary forms. As Lu Xun observes, xiaoshuo is “appended as a separate entry” and “excluded from the official categorization scheme.” Unlike other philosophical-literary entries, xiaoshuo is identified as a miscellaneous hodge-podge that is difficult to classify. It is not exactly a school of philosophy, but it also shares certain features in common with other forms of philosophical discourse.

In Han shu, Ban Gu provides an explanation of the way in which he treats xiaoshuo:

The writers of xiaoshuo succeeded the baiguan ᅬ (minor officials), whose task was to collect street talk and alley gossip. Confucius says: “Even byways are worth exploring. But if we go too far we may be bogged down.”32 Gentlemen thus do not undertake the writing of xiaoshuo, but neither do they dismiss xiaoshuo altogether. Xiaoshuo contains the sayings of the common people and so it is still worth recording.33

According to Ban Gu, the function of early xiaoshuo was to preserve

�� 30 Han shu, normally translated as History of the Former Han, is also sometimes rendered as The Book of Han. It is the first historical account in China that focuses exclusively on a single dynasty. The work hence established the “dynasty mode of historical writings” for the centuries to follow. William Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 373. 31 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 2. 32 Although Confucius has been credited with this statement, according to the Analects it was actually his student Zixia who made this comment: “Zixia says, ‘Although the byways no doubt have their own interesting sights to see, one who wishes to reach a distant destination fears becoming mired. This is why the gentleman does not take the byways.’” Confucius, Confucius Analects with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, 19.4. 33 Lu Xun quotes this passage from Ban Gu’s historical writings in the first chapter of his book. Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 3.


socio-cultural customs and folk mores that would otherwise be excluded from official history. Such records were valued only when they served a political purpose; they were written by government officials as a way to monitor and govern the subjects.34 From this perspective, it is difficult to distinguish early xiaoshuo from historical accounts, since no clear distinction is made between the general concept of shi (history) and other conceptual categories. Shi is considered the ultimate framework through which to approach all types of writings.35

Even the concept of xiaoshuo per se is a broad and vague category that encompasses a variety of writings, such as anecdotes, historical legends, biographies, and supernatural tales.36 It was not until the mid-eleventh century that supernatural tales were no longer considered history (shi) and all works listed as xiaoshuo were classified as philosophy.37 In the sixteenth century, the bibliographer Hu Yinglin 㚵ឝ味 (1551–1602) classified xiaoshuo into six categories: zhiguai ᖫᗾ (records of the strange), chuanqi ڇ༛ (tales of the marvelous), zalu 䲰䣘 (anecdotes), congtan শ䂛 (miscellaneous notes), bianding 䖃㿖 (research), and zhengui ㆈ 㽣 (moral admonitions). The classification system devised by Hu Yinglin is often viewed as the first attempt to understand xiaoshuo as a singular genre, which encompasses a variety of subgenres.38 By the end of the eighteenth century, the boundaries of xiaoshuo as a genre were further delineated. Legends and unofficial biographies were no longer classified as shi. Instead, they were classified exclusively as xiaoshuo, which was itself categorized as a genre of philosophy. Although the definition of xiaoshuo changed and became more specific over time, the term was throughout �� 34 The tradition of minor officials recording street talk has also been understood as a way “to help the ruler to understand country ways and morals.” Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 6–7. The possible connection between xiaoshuo and the accounts of minor officials of the first century is also described in the official book catalogue of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao (Annotated catalog of the complete imperial library). Ji Yun 㑾ᯔ (1724–1805), the chief editor of this work, writes, “Ban Gu told us that the writers of xiaoshuo were the successors of the minor historians who collected information. 35 The tradition of historical writing can be traced back to Sima Qian’s (145? – 86? B.C.) Shiji. Shiji covers the entirety of Chinese history from the Yellow Emperor to the time when Sima Qian himself lived. This work is divided into five sections: benji, biao, shu, shijia, and liezhuan. But nowhere in these five sections is philosophy or literature listed as a subcategory. Ancient thinkers such as Confucius and Zhuangzi, whom are later categorized as philosophers, are classified separately in shijia and liezhuan. 36 Laura Hua Wu even argues that, as late as the sixteenth century, xiaoshuo was still used as an umbrella term to refer to a variety of subgenres. Wu writes, “The xiaoshuo genre as defined… remained an umbrella genre covering a medley of subgenres, narrative or non-narrative, literary or non-literary, fictional or non-fictional.” Laura Hua Wu, “From Xiaoshuo to Fiction: Hu Yingling’s Genre Study of Xiaoshuo,” 369. 37 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 5. 38 Laura Hua Wu, “From Xiaoshuo to Fiction: Hu Yingling’s Genre Study of Xiaoshuo,” 369–71.


defined in relation to the philosophical and historical traditions. From this perspective, the bibliographical classification schemes from the first to the eighteenth century are merely, as described by Lu Xun, “a branch of historical science.”39 Lu Xun further quipped that, “we cannot expect these bibliographers to break their own rules.”40 That is to say, from Lu Xun’s point of view, xiaoshuo as an independent literary concept had yet to be born even in the eighteenth century. If Lu Xun’s etymological study of xiaoshuo tells us anything, it is, first of all, the essential ambiguity of xiaoshuo as a generic and historical concept. Lu Xun’s study further suggests the possibility of negotiating and reconciling the differences between the Western and Chinese concepts by re-articulating a Chinese literary history.

Creative Writing: Lu Xun’s Formulation of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept

If the historical roots of Chinese fiction are intertwined with historical and philosophical writings, how does Lu Xun delineate xiaoshuo as a specific literary genre? The question can be answered by examining Lu Xun’s descriptions of xiaoshuo. Throughout A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Lu Xun is intent on distinguishing works that were intended as literary creations from those that were not. The writer’s creativity thus becomes an important standard in evaluating the fictionality of any work that is to be defined as xiaoshuo. For example, Lu Xun does not consider the writings of minor officials to be fiction because these officials wrote not for creative purposes, but rather in order to preserve social customs. Lu Xun emphasizes the fact that “these officials were collectors, not authors.” 41 When discussing supernatural tales from the third to sixth centuries,42 Lu Xun also discredits their fictional value:

Shamanism was widespread in ancient China and, during the Qin and Han dynasties, there were much talk of spirits and saints… Then Hinayana Buddhism gradually spread to China. Since these religions had much to say

�� 39 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 9. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 10. 42 In modern scholarship, zhiguai (the records of the strange) written during the Six Dynasties (220–589) has often been compared with chuanqi (the tales of the marvelous), which became popular during the Tang dynasty (618–907). Zhiguai have often been defined as brief and unembellished stories, while chuanqi have been described as long and elaborate. Although Hu Yinglin discussed the conceptual differences between zhiguai and chuanqi, it was not until the publication of Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction that the two were distinguished as two different narrative forms.


about spirits and miracles, the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries produced many works dealing with the supernatural. Some were written by the literati, others by religious devotees. Although the literati differed from the Buddhist and Daoist writers, whose aim was to spread their religious beliefs, they did not intend to write fiction, either. People during that period recognized the difference between humans and spirits, but the existence of the latter was nonetheless taken as fact. Thus, writers recorded supernatural tales in the same way as they did stories about human beings. There was no distinction between the factual and the fictional in these stories.43

Lu Xun argues that the influence exerted by indigenous religious beliefs and Buddhist doctrine on supernatural narratives indicates that such narratives should not be considered xiaoshuo. Although modern readers might consider such tales “supernatural,” their authors considered them to be fact; therefore, these tales cannot be understand as fiction. Lu Xun’s discussion of zhiguai further suggests that, for him, the crucial defining characteristic of fiction is authorial intent. In discussing chuanqi, Lu Xun likewise argues:

Xiaoshuo, like poetry, underwent radical changes in the Tang dynasty. Although the tales written during this period still dealt with marvels and strange phenomena, the plots became more elaborate and the language more polished. Compared with the brevity and simplicity of the tales produced during the Six Dynasties [220–589], this was a great evolutionary advancement. Another, more significant change was that, by this time, writers were consciously writing fiction.44

In this passage, Lu Xun again defines the difference between fiction and non-fiction in terms of the self-conscious authorial intention to engage in creative writing. According to Lu Xun, Tang tales are distinguished from their Six Dynasties predecessors by the Tang authors’ conscious creation of fictional characters. As an example of this phenomenon, Lu Xun discusses an early Tang tale “Bu Jiang Zong baiyuan zhuan” 㺰∳㐑ⱑ⤓ڇ (A supplement to the legend of the white ape Jiang Zong). The story centers on remarkable events in the life of a government official named Ouyang He ℤ䱑㋛, who was a real historical figure. During the Liang dynasty (502–57), Ouyang He embarked on a southern expedition. While he was away on this expedition, his wife was kidnapped by a white ape, and, by the time she was rescued, she was already pregnant with the ape’s child. A year later, she gave birth to a child who looked like a monkey. �� 43 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 45. 44 Ibid., 85.


Later, Ouyang He was executed for unrelated reasons, and his friend, Jiang Zong, adopted this child. Despite of the child’s monkey-like appearance, he became a successful official.45 According to Lu Xun, the existence of this story suggests that, by the seventh century, the short story format was already being used to serve a variety of functions other than recording historical events. Lu Xun argues that this story was obviously written by one of Ouyang He’s political enemies. As Lu Xun notes, “the story is described as a supplement to the story of Jiang Zong. It is evident that the tradition of inventing stories to slander people dates back to the early period of Chinese fiction.”46 Lu Xun thus considers the tales written during the seventh century to be the first corpus of writings that resemble “fiction,” understood as a form of narrative that is not grounded in factual authenticity. Lu Xun quotes Hu Yinglin’s discussion of the development of supernatural tales: “Although tales describing supernatural phenomena were popular during the Six Dynasties, these stories were not entirely imaginary. Many of them are based on hearsay or false reports. The Tang dynasty literati, on the other hand, deliberately invented strange adventures out of creativity and curiosity.”47 The criteria used by Lu Xun to evaluate the fictionality of a given work thus raises the question of what fiction (or xiaoshuo, to be more specific) is in the Chinese context. Unlike earlier definitions of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun’s definition is not dependent on a classification scheme, but rather hinges on authorial intent. According to the literary-historical narrative constructed by Lu Xun, beginning in the Tang dynasty, writers began to compose literature for a variety of reasons, such as criticizing the political enemies and impressing the examiners in the civil service examination.48 The authenticity of a story is no longer the main criterion of determining a work’s value. The creation of fictional characters and scenarios in the Tang tales at once particularizes and universalizes the referents in the story, qualifying them as fiction in the modern sense. Since the stories realistically describe not a singularly referential event, but a universally relatable instance, the credible and the imaginary are no longer two

�� 45 The story is found in Li Fang’s Taiping guangji in juan 444 under the title, “Ouyang He.” For more discussion on this story, see Wu Zhida, Tangren chuanqi, 31–35. 46 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 87. 47 Ibid., 85. Also see Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji, vol. 9, 73. 48 In “The Historical Development of Chinese Fiction,” Lu Xun explains that, “towards the middle of the eighth century, there were more writers of fiction. Even those who had previously despised short stories now started to write them. This change was connected to the social environment at the time. Civil service candidates were in the habit of giving a sample of their writings to influential figures at court upon reaching the capital. If their compositions—usually their best poems—were praised, the candidates would have a better chance of passing the examination. Towards the end of the eighth century, literati grew rather tired of poetry, and some started to write stories and won fame through them.” Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 408.


contradictory concepts. In this paper, I draw upon Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction to

examine the complexities involved in translating the Chinese term xiaoshuo as fiction. I argue that Lu Xun describes xiaoshuo as a concept that is both specifically and universally applicable to other cultural contexts. In order to make the ancient Chinese term xiaoshuo a globally relevant, “modern” literary concept, Lu Xun delineates its history from the ancient past to an open-ended future. Lu Xun’s historicization or theorization of xiaoshuo is also geared towards enabling Chinese literary production, ancient and contemporary, to enter the domain of world literature. As the title of Lu Xun’s work indicates, the book presents the history of Chinese xiaoshuo, meaning there can also be a history of English xiaoshuo, French xiaoshuo, German xiaoshuo, Italian xiaoshuo, or Japanese xiaoshuo. The project of building a national literature requires the discursive construction of a seemingly unified and enclosed literary domain, which is nonetheless capable of growing and expanding. In a non-Western context, however, such a project also requires incorporating, negotiating, and reworking existing terms, concepts, and discourses, which, in many cases, were originally derived from very different cultural contexts. Lu Xun’s re-introduction of xiaoshuo provides us with a good example of this process.

References

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Community: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006.

Bishop, John. “Some Limitations of Chinese Fiction.” The Far Eastern Quarterly 15, no. 2 (1956): 239–74.

Chen Pingyuan. Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian: Qingmo Minchu xiaoshuo yanjiu [The starting point of modern Chinese novels: A study on the Chinese novels during the late Qing and early Republican period]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005.

Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong. Ershi shiji Zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao [Theoretical discourses of Chinese novels during the twentieth century]. Volume 1. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1997.

Confucius. Confucius Analects with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Edward Slingerland. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003.

Denton, Kirk. Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

de Bary, William Theodore and Irene Bloom (ed.). Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Eoyang, Eugene. “A Taste for Apricots: Approaches to Chinese Fiction.” In Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, edited by Andrew H. Plaks, 53–69. Princeton, NJ: Princeton university Press, 1977.

Hill, Michael Gibbs. Lin Shu, Inc.: Trans lation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture.


New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013. Gallagher, Catherine. “The Rise of Fictionality.” In The Novel Volume 1: History, Geography,

and Culture, edited by Franco Moretti. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Plaks, Andrew H. “Toward a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative.” In Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, edited by Andrew H. Plaks, 309–52. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Liang Qichao. Liang Qichao wenji [Collected essays of Liang Qichao]. Beijing: Yanshan chubanshe, 1997.

Liu, Lydia H. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Lu Xun. A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956.

———. Lu Xun quanji, vol. 9. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005. Schwarcz, Vera. The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth

Movement of 1919. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1986. Wang, David Der-wei. Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction,

1849–1911. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Wu, Laura Hua. “From Xiaoshuo to Fiction: Hu Yingling’s Genre Study of Xiaoshuo.”

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 55, no. 2 (1995). Wu Zhida. Tangren chuanqi [Tang dynasty tales]. Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 1991. Zeitlin, Judith. “Xiaoshuo.” In The Novel Volume 1: History, Geography, and Culture, edited

by Franco Moretti. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. �

The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept: Lu Xun and the Question of ‘Fiction’ in Chinese...

Documents

Transcript of The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept: Lu Xun and the Question of ‘Fiction’ in Chinese...