Hu Shi the Literary Avante Garde

Hu Shi the Literary Avante Garde Throughout china’s history it had been socially constructed under Confucianism. In the early 20th century, times were changing fast and managing a society under the old ways of Confucian had become unpractical. Beginning around 1917, Chinese intellectuals began to engage each other in serious discussion and debate on culture, history, philosophy, and related subjects — all with the concern to the problem of China’s weakness and the possible solutions to that problem. This period of intellectual debate is called the May Fourth Movement. Hu Shi was one of the leading May Fourth intellectuals. Hu graduated from Cornell University and studied philosophy under John Dewey at Columbia University. He is well-known for his advocacy of literary reform for modern China. His article, “A Preliminary Discussion of Literary Reform,” which appeared in The New Youth magazine, proposed the radical idea of writing in vernacular Chinese rather than classical. For the average Chinese the classical style was incomprehensible. This was a major sociological problem and needed to be changed so everyone could understand. Until Hu’s article was published, no reformers or revolutionaries had conceived of writing in anything other than classical Chinese. Hu offered a realistic means of improving communication, promoting social criticism, and reevaluating Chinese literacy. In a speech given at Beijing University July 1917 Hu Shi talked about the importance and urgency of the reform of Chinese literature: “Both language and writing issue from the mind. Language issues through the mouth and writing issues through the pen. In western countries, spoken language and writing are generally close to each other, but not in our country. In our country, the spoken language and writing have nothing to do with each other. To say “eating,” the spoken language uses the word chifan, while writing uses the word shi. To say “walking,” the spoken language uses the word zoulu,

References: Hu, S. (2000). The new culture movement. In T. Bary & R. Lufrano (Eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume 2 (pp. 351-395). New York: Columbia University Press. Jiang, P. (2008). Hu Shi and Wang Zaoshi: Mutual Support in the Struggle for Democracy and the Constitution. Chinese Studies In History, 41(4), 57-86. doi:10.2753/CSH0009-4633410402