Fission And Naturalization: The Transformation Of Classics To Literature In The Writing Of Literature History Of The Republic Of China

A large number of texts that we now view as traditional literature were classified as Confucian Classics in the previous system of knowledge.Scholars believe that this shift originated from the transformation of the academic system in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,and is especially demonstrative in the writing of the literary history in the Republic of China.This dissertation attempts to analyze the writing of the history of literature in the Republic of China,and explore how it solved the problem of transforming some of the texts in the classics into literature through summarization,transformation and classification.The first chapter combs through the context of the writing of the Republic of China literature history.The writing of the literary history of the Republic of China itself took place under the complex background of the gradual collapse of Confucianism,the movement of Chinese ancient academics,and the establishment of literature.Confucian Classics,the core of traditional academic studies,was abolished by the new education system,becoming a common reference material under such transition.At the same time,liberal arts majors established with the influence of western education.Scholars searched for literary value from materials originally in the study of Confucian classics,interpreted them through the compilation of literary history,and transformed it into literature.The second chapter discusses the literary transition of Shi Jing by the scholars of the Republic of China and the new literary positioning of Shi Jing by literary history.The intervention of folklore lifted the Shijing from the genre of classics,while "lyricism" made it literary.As it was born in the initial stage of Chinese civilization and profoundly influenced the literary creation of the literary creations afterwards,it sustained its status as the source of poetry.Chapter Three deals with the issue of how the history of the Republic of China literature re-positioned Zuo Zhuan,with new concepts of prose.Scholars categorized Zuo Zhuan as narrative prose;Lun Yu and Meng Zi as reasoning prose.They were also classified as literature due to their unique narrative style,rich vocabulary and superb narrative skills,thus maintained its status in the canon.By way of de-classification of classics,interpretation of texts through a literary lens,and novel way of classification,the history of literature in the Republic of China rendered some texts in classics features of modern literature: Shijing became the source of poetic lyric literature;Zuozhuan became a model of narrative prose;Lunyu and Mengzi were classified as classics of reasoning prose by some literary history due to their narrative style and language characteristics,and thus fulfilled the transformation from classics to literature.