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This article posits modern Chinese realism as heteromodal, capable of encompassing many modes of narration from a plurality of literary movements. Heteromodality results from the heterochronic Chinese importation of Western literary history, the simultaneous reception of what were originally successive historical periods. The fountainhead of heteromodal Chinese realism is Lu Xun’s 1918 “Diary of a Madman,” one of the first modern vernacular Chinese short stories. Though Lu Xun has long been considered a foundational writer of realism in China, critics have complicated this designation by pointing out his modernist or symbolist proclivities. This article redefines Lu Xun’s realism by enlarging the scope of inquiry beyond “Diary” itself to scrutinize its main Russian intertexts: Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 story “Diary of a Madman” and Leonid Andreev’s 1904 novella Red Laugh. Examining the elements that Lu Xun’s story cannibalizes from Russian intertexts, which have themselves defied straightforward categorizations such as realism, the article intervenes in long-standing discussions about the nature of realism in modern China and, more broadly, in recent conversations about peripheral realism.
This article posits modern Chinese realism as heteromodal, capable of encompassing many modes of narration from a plurality of literary movements. Heteromodality results from the heterochronic Chinese importation of Western literary history, the simultaneous reception of what were originally successive historical periods. The fountainhead of heteromodal Chinese realism is Lu Xun’s 1918 “Diary of a Madman,” one of the first modern vernacular Chinese short stories. Though Lu Xun has long been considered a foundational writer of realism in China, critics have complicated this designation by pointing out his modernist or symbolist proclivities. This article redefines Lu Xun’s realism by enlarging the scope of inquiry beyond “Diary” itself to scrutinize its main Russian intertexts: Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 story “Diary of a Madman” and Leonid Andreev’s 1904 novella Red Laugh. Examining the elements that Lu Xun’s story cannibalizes from Russian intertexts, which have themselves defied straightforward categorizations such as realism, the article intervenes in long-standing discussions about the nature of realism in modern China and, more broadly, in recent conversations about peripheral realism.
At the turn of the twentieth century, many Chinese translators departed from the mainstream approach to world literature advocated by Western powers and turned their attention to what Chinese theorists call the “literature of weak and small nations.” China’s marginalized position in the international political and economic order of the time prompted the pursuit of a discourse to address imperialism and national identity, as well as problems of social injustice and oppression. This article draws on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s interpretation of “minor literature” to analyze Lu Xun’s interest in the literature of weak and small nations, which developed against the backdrop of the European formation of a canonical genealogy of world literature ( Weltliteratur). By introducing Chinese readers to relevant literary history and translating selected works of fiction, Lu Xun formed an imagined community of letters joining China to the weak and small nations — despite his heavy reliance on German sources that took a markedly canonical stance. This article focuses on Lu Xun’s translation and interpretation of two short stories by Ivan Vazov, Bulgaria’s pre-eminent modern writer, to explore how the literature of weak and small nations assisted Lu Xun in negotiating not only with Western cultural hegemony but also with Chinese tradition and nationalism.
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