Lu Xun's Essays And Ideas Generated In The 1930 S

The literature and thought of Lu Xun has been part and parcel of the study of modern Chinese literature. My dissertation starts with Critical Theory and tries to produce a new interpretation of Lu Xun’s Zawen in the1930s. It first outlines the idea of essay and anti-literature in the theoretical network of Critical Theory, which are closely related to Lu Xun’s reception of Zawen. Lu Xun himself saw this literary form as a critical response to the art for art’s sake. Zawen and Critical Theory share an impulse of heterogeneous elements and a defiant resistance to modernistic Literature.Contemporary studies on Lu Xun’s thoughts are also deeply affected by Critical Theory. Therefore, some scholars see Lu Xun as essentially a force of resistance to modernism and Western modernity. In the summary of past research outcomes in the first chapter, I’ll emphasize on the theoretical limitation of the construction of Subject within Lu Xun’s thoughts. This subject, which is captioned in many cases, is still an anti-thesis of Hegelian dialectics. A more Chinese variant of the consciousness of subject will not overcome the hegemonic logic of Hegelian dialectics. The Becoming of thought which this dissertation employs will evade the logic of subject consciousness of reason and interpret the text of Zawen along the logic of feelings and experience.The second chapter analyzes Lu Xun’s perception of revolutionary time within his Zawen in the period of1930’s. Revolution is not equal to a radical idea of history per se. Though the reality is in crisis, Luxun still retains an openness of perception of time. Time is non-radical, a Krisis between life and death, and a dirty war on the plateau of Zawen text. The disappearance of history and the emergence of slippery historiography breaks the temporal chains of Zawen and historical novel.The third chapter tries to read Lu Xun’s perception of space in Shanghai, again along the Zawens in the1930s. He did not presuppose a typical public sphere. On the contrary, Lu Xun reminded his readers that this is actually a discursive space of pseudo-freedom. In the space of modern Shanghai, he observed various hidden acts, and debunked the mechanism of power structure by delineating those trivial, commonplace acts. Foreign policemen and gangsters occupied the space of Shanghai concession by the imperial colonizers and the colonized. And Lu Xun himself was situated within the life experience of Shanghai lanes and alleys, which influenced his late thoughts in some way.In the ending part, Lu Xun’s Zawen in the1930s are treated a totality which contains his unique perception of time as well as space. This totality transcends the paradox of newness and tradition. It is a response to Theory, and a process of becoming-thought.