The Establishment of the Discipline and Its Champions: Chen Yinke—Qian Zhongshu—Zhu Guangqian—Zong Baihua

Abstract

Amidst the frequent contact between Chinese and foreign literature in the first 20 years of the twentieth century, the conditions for the emergence of comparative literature as a field of study were maturing day by day. At the time, Tsinghua University’s literature courses included such topics as “Comparative Literature,” “French Literature,” “Modern Literature,” “The Western Background to Modern Chinese Literature,” “Modern German Drama,” “Literature and Life,” and “The Tale of Genji.”