Lu Xun (, ; 25 September 188119 October 1936), pen name of Zhou Shuren, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer. A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in both vernacular and literary Chinese as a novelist, literary critic, essayist, poet, translator and political commentator, known for his sharp, satirical style and critical reflections on Chinese history and culture.
Lu Xun was born into a declining family of landlords and scholar-officials in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and was the elder brother of Zhou Zuoren. Although he initially aspired to sit for the imperial examination, his family's declining fortunes led him to attend government-funded schools established under the Self-Strengthening Movement, where he was introduced to Western science and thought. In 1904, he enrolled at the Sendai Medical College in Japan, but left medicine to pursue literature. Financial difficulties forced his return to China, where he taught at various schools and colleges before taking a position at the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang government.
Lu Xun pioneered the New Culture Movement by publishing the first novel in vernacular Chinese, Diary of a Madman, in 1918. He gained prominence through his political writings in La Jeunesse following the May Fourth Movement in 1919. From the late 1920s onward, Lu Xun became increasingly engaged with Marxist thought and leftist politics. In the 1930s, he maintained a close but fraught relationship with the League of Left-Wing Writers. His works have been canonized in the People's Republic of China owing to Mao Zedong's high regard for him.
Biography Family background Lu Xun was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. His birth name was "Zhou Zhangshou" (). His courtesy name was "Yushan" (), which he later changed to "Yucai" (). In 1898, before he went to the Jiangnan Naval Academy, he took the given name "Shuren" (), which figuratively means "to be an educated man". The name "Lu Xun ", by which he is best known, was a pen name chosen upon the initial publishing of his story Diary of a Madman in 1918, with the surname Lu from his mother.Kowallis 10Kowallis 11–12
The Zhou family had been prosperous for centuries, and had become wealthy through landowning, pawnbroking, and by having several family members promoted to government positions. Lu Xun's paternal grandfather, Zhou Fuqing, was appointed to the Imperial Hanlin Academy in Beijing, the highest position possible for aspiring civil servants at that time. By the time Lu Xun was born, however, his family's prosperity had already been declining.
Lu Xun's father, Zhou Boyi, had been successful at passing the county-level imperial examinations, the route to wealth and social success in imperial China, but was unsuccessful in writing the more competitive provincial-level examinations. In 1893 he was discovered attempting to bribe an examination official. He was stripped of his position in the government and forbidden to ever again write the civil service examinations.Denton "Early Life" Lu Xun's grandfather was also implicated, and was sentenced to beheading for his son's crime. The sentence was later commuted, and he was imprisoned in Hangzhou instead. The Zhou family only prevented Lu Xun's grandfather from being executed through regular, expensive bribes to authorities, until he was finally released in 1901.Lovell 2009 xv
After the family turmoil, Lu Xun's father engaged in heavy drinking and opium use and his health declined. Local doctors attempted to cure him through a series of expensive quack prescriptions, including monogamous crickets, sugar cane that had survived frost three times, ink, and the skin from a drum. He might have suffered from dropsy. He died of an asthma attack in 1896, at the age of 35.
Lu Xun's mother came from the same landed-gentry class as Lu Xun's father and was a native of Anqiaotou, a small rural town that is now part of Tongxiang, Zhejiang. Because formal education was not considered appropriate for girls, she received no schooling, but nevertheless taught herself to read and write.
Education Lu Xun's early education was based on the Confucian classics, in which he studied poetry, history, and philosophy—subjects which, he later reflected, were neither useful nor interesting to him. Instead, he enjoyed folk stories and opera, including the mythological narratives of the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the ghost stories told to him by a servant.
Lu Xun half-heartedly participated in the first, district-level civil service examination in 1898, but then abandoned pursuing a traditional Confucian education or career. He intended to study at a prestigious school, the Qiushi Academy (or Seeking Affirmation Academy) in Hangzhou, but was forced by his family's poverty to instead study at the Jiangnan Naval Academy, a tuition-free military school in Nanjing.Denton "WESTERN EDUCATION: 1898–1902"
As a consequence of Lu Xun's decision to attend a military school specializing in Western education, his mother wept, he was instructed to change his name to avoid disgracing his family, and some of his relatives began to look down on him. Lu Xun attended the Jiangnan Naval Academy for half a year, and left after it became clear that he would be assigned to work in an engine room, below deck, which he considered degrading. He later wrote that he was dissatisfied with the quality of teaching at the academy.Lovell 2009 xvi
After leaving the school, Lu Xun sat for the lowest level of the civil service exams, and finished 137th of 500. He intended to sit for the next-highest level, but became upset when one of his younger brothers died, and abandoned his plans.
Lu Xun transferred to the School of Mines and Railways affiliated to the Jiangnan Naval Academy in 1899, and graduated in 1902. The school exposed Lu Xun to foreign literature, philosophy, history, and science, and he studied English and German intensively. Some of the influential authors that he read during that period include T. H. Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Yan Fu, and Liang Qichao. His later social philosophy may have been influenced by several novels about social conflict that he read during the period, including Ivanhoe and Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Lu Xun did well at the school with relatively little effort, and occasionally experienced racism directed at him from resident Manchu bannermen. The racism he experienced may have influenced his later sense of Han Chinese nationalism. After graduating Lu Xun planned to become a doctor.
In 1902, Lu Xun left for Japan on a Qing government scholarship to pursue an education in Western medicine. After arriving in Japan he attended the Kobun Institute, a preparatory language school for Chinese students attending Japanese universities. After encouragement from a classmate, he cut off his queue that Han Chinese were obliged to wear at the time, and practiced jujutsu in his free time. He had an ambiguous attitude towards Chinese revolutionary politics during the period, and it is not clear whether he joined any of the revolutionary parties that were popular among Chinese expatriates in Japan at that time, such as the Tongmenghui. He experienced anti-Chinese racism, but was simultaneously disgusted with the behaviour of some Chinese who were living in Japan. His earliest surviving essays, written in literary Chinese, were published while he was attending this school, and he translated into Chinese some of the novels, including Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.Denton "JAPAN: 1902–09"
In 1904, Lu Xun enrolled at the Sendai Medical School (now Tohoku University School of Medicine), but remained there for less than two years. He generally found his studies at the school tedious and difficult, partially due to his imperfect Japanese. While at medical school, he met Fujino Genkurō, initially his anatomy professor, who showed particular kindness toward Lu Xun, then the school’s only Chinese student. Because of Fujino’s mentorship, Lu Xun was accused by some classmates of receiving unfair assistance in examinations, including advance access to examination questions. Lu Xun later recalled his mentor affectionately in the essay “Mr. Fujino”, published in Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. The essay became one of his best read works and has been included in school textbooks in both China and Japan.
While Lu Xun was attending medical school, the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) broke out. Part of the war was fought on disputed Chinese land. Lantern slides used in the classroom also featured news items. One news slide showed a public execution of a Chinese prisoner being executed by the Japanese military for being an alleged Russian spy. The on-lookers shown in the slide were mainly Chinese, and Lu Xun was shocked by what he viewed as their complete apathy. In his preface to Nahan, the first collection of his short stories, Lu Xun explained how viewing this scene influenced him to quit studying medicine and become a literary physician to what he perceived as China's spiritual illness:
At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time, but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption, the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the spectacle.
In March 1906, Lu Xun secretly terminated his pursuit of the degree and left college. After arriving in Tokyo, he made sure that the Chinese embassy would not cancel his scholarship and registered at the local German Institute, but was not required to take classes there. He began to read Nietzsche, and wrote a number of essays in the period that were influenced by his philosophy.
In June 1906, Lu Xun's mother heard a rumor that he had married a Japanese girl and had a child with her, and feigned illness as a pretext to ask Lu Xun to return home, where she would then force him to take part in an arranged marriage she had agreed to several years before.Kowallis 22 The girl, Zhu An, had little in common with Lu, was illiterate, and had been subject to foot binding.Veg Lu Xun married her, but the two never developed a romantic relationship. Despite this, he continued to provide for her financially for the rest of his life. Several days after the wedding, Lu Xun sailed back to Japan with his younger brother, Zhou Zuoren, and left behind his new wife.
After returning to Japan he took informal classes in literature and history, published several essays in student-run journals,Kowallis 20–23 and in 1907 briefly took Russian lessons. He attempted to found a literary journal, New Life, with his brother, but before the first issue could be published, the project’s other contributors and financial backers withdrew, causing it to collapse. In 1909 Lu Xun and his brother published their translations of Western fiction, including Edgar Allan Poe, as Tales from Abroad, but the book sold only 41 copies of the 1,500 copies that were printed. The publication failed for a number of reasons: it was only sold in Tokyo, which did not have a large Chinese population, and in a single silk shop in Shanghai. Additionally, they wrote in literary Chinese, which was difficult for ordinary people to read.
Lu's 1908 essay On the Power of Mara Poetry was significant in introducing Byronic romanticism and romantic literature to Sinophone audiences.
Early career