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“Isms” and the Refractions of World Literature in May Fourth China

Yuan, Ziqi
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437559868

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
This thesis is a comparative study of two translation projects by two Chinese intellectual groups that were active in the early 20th century, the New Culturalists and the Critical Review School. The project tries to bridge two fields of study, i.e. the intellectual history of the Chinese May Fourth period (mid-1910s to mid-1920s) and the study of world literature. The theoretical concern of this thesis in terms of world literature is an area of inquiry which considers the human knowledge, values, beliefs, etc. as important constructive powers of international literary orders. I project this theoretical concern onto the historical issue of “isms” in the study of Chinese May Fourth history. As a traditional Western way of designating philosophical ideologies, the category of “isms” was accepted in the Chinese context in the mid-1910s, and rapidly populated and reshaped Chinese intellectual discourse in the years that followed. The main discussion part of this thesis contains two case studies, each dedicated to a translation project hosted by one of the two intellectual groups. In the case studies, I use a close reading method to investigate the targeted groups’ modes of receiving Western literary ideologies and their methods of translating non-Chinese literary works. By juxtaposing the two intellectual groups, I reveal the historical tension in China between different assumptions of world literature, which evolved in the early 20th-century Chinese contexts into contending modes reproducing the Western texts and knowledge. In the conclusion, I demonstrate how the May Fourth literary practices can be viewed as objects of the study of world literature, and argue that these new objects of study entail theoretical impacts. In particular, my case studies show that the theoretical construction of world literature should take into account the historical and geographical diversity of the non-Western world which is not yet fully recognized as a space of world literature.
Nina Berman (Advisor)
Kirk Denton (Advisor)
94 p.
Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Comparative Literature
world literature; May Fourth; translation studies; ism; New Culture Movement; The Critical Review School; Xueheng; Ibsen; New Humanism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yuan, Z. (2015). “Isms” and the Refractions of World Literature in May Fourth China [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437559868

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yuan, Ziqi. “Isms” and the Refractions of World Literature in May Fourth China. 2015. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437559868.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yuan, Ziqi. "“Isms” and the Refractions of World Literature in May Fourth China." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437559868

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1437559868
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.