World Literature and Cultural Transformation in Modern Chinese Literature
World Literature and Cultural Transformation in Modern Chinese Literature

Summary/Abstract: As the person who coined the term World Literature, Goethe once said, “Left to itself, every literature will exhaust its vitality, if it is not refreshed by the interest and contributions of a foreign one” (Damrosch 2003: 7). A look at the history of China before the mid-nineteenth century reveals the fact that reading and study of Western literatures in China have been relatively scanty owing to geographical, social, linguistic, political and cultural factors. The traditional “insularity” of the Chinese, the “closed door” policy, the lack of competent translators as cultural ambassadors, the Chinese pride in their culture, and their general fear of things “foreign” have all accounted for the absence of a systematic introduction and study of foreign literature, especially European literature, in China for centuries. The situation has drastically changed, however, since the latter part of the nineteenth century with China’s changing diplomatic relations with the world’s great powers. China came to see her vulnerability in face of foreign invasion and decided to initiate fundamental changes on all fronts in the country with the hope of reviving and strengthening the country through modernization. In retrospection, the “ziqiang” campaign (1861–1895) was characterized by the Chinese intellectuals’ conscious effort to revitalize the country through Westernization. For the first time in Chinese history, many Chinese intellectuals turned to the West for inspiration and to great canonical works in particular for ideas, models and direction. Actively they sought to learn from world masters for the purpose of nation building while using Chinese learning as their anchor or point of reference throughout this massive “self-strengthening” campaign. Students who were sent to study abroad have played a significant role in broadening and shifting their countrymen’s literary knowledge and taste, thus paving the way for the massive dissemination of world literature in the country in early twentieth century.

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