Lu Xun’s Classical-Style Poetry and the 1911 Revolution

Abstract

The extent of Lu Xun’s identification with the cause of the revolutionists who worked to bring about the 1911 Revolution has been the subject of debate among scholars ever since the year after his death when his brother Zhou Zuoren emphatically denied his membership in the Guangfu Hui. The scholars who think he did join (and actively participate in) that revolutionary organization rely on attributions to Lu Xun by third parties who conversed with him late in his life, but Lu Xun never actually addressed this question in his written or published works and, despite his student-teacher relationship with Zhang Taiyan (and therefore by inference the Tokyo and Zhejiang branches of the Guangfu Hui), no one has ever brought forth archival evidence to support the claim of his membership. Here I will examine the classical-style poetry Lu Xun wrote before and after the event in order to gauge through first-hand evidence his disposition toward the Republican revolution and the historic transition it signaled for China.