Yu Dafu Research Articles

Interpreting the Modernity of Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” Combined with Decadence Theory

Interpreting the Modernity of Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” Combined with Decadence Theory

The Comparison of Redundant Human Figures in Chinese and Japanese Literary Works: A Case Study of “The Sinking” and “The Quilt”

The novel “Quilt” by Tayama Katai is the founding work of Japanese private novels, and the main character Tokio has a full and three-dimensional image, and Tokio’s inner struggle reflects the spiritual dilemma of a generation of Japanese intellectuals. Under the influence of the trend of Japanese private novels, Yu Dafu wrote a shocking work in the literary world of the May 4th—The Sinking, the image of “He” in the novel and Tokio in The Quilt have both similarities and subtle differences. This paper will focus on the comparison of the two images to further explore the deeper meaning behind the similarities and differences.

АКСИОЛОГИЯ ДИАЛОГА КУЛЬТУР:«КИТАЙСКАЯ» РЕЦЕПЦИЯ ТВОРЧЕСТВА Ф. М. ДОСТОЕВСКОГО В XX- XXI В.В

The article analyses the reception of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s creation in the works of Chinese researchers. The main attention is paid to the historical context in which Dostoevsky’s works were translated. The analysis of the cultural factors, in the horizon of which the translation was carried out, allows us to conclude that the interaction with Dostoevsky’s works became the basis for the formation of a value approach in Chinese intellectual culture. The reception of the key themes and peculiarities of Dostoevsky’s style, which resonated with Chinese scholars and writers, including Lu Xun, Yu Hua, Liu Lin, Yu Dafu and Liu Cixin, is considered as the foundations of Chinese axiological philosophy, formed in dialogue with Russian culture and Russian linguistic consciousness, functionally developed with a reliance on “participatory (axiological)” thinking. The peculiarities of Dostoevsky’s work reception in modern China are noted: high appreciation of artistic talent, ability to create vivid and memorable images, mastery in the use of language, attention to complex philosophical issues relevant in the circumstances of modern history.

The theory of Chinese narrative prose in the early twentieth century.

The subject of the study is critical articles by Chinese writers and literary theorists of the early twentieth century. They are dedicated to ways of transforming traditional literature. The object of the study is the evolution of the views of Wang Guowei, Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Yu Dafu, who in the process of creating modern Chinese literature (Xiandai Wenxue) set tasks for the national intelligentsia. The article proves that the interpretation of the main constants of modern Chinese literature was based on the ideas of Western, primarily German and English literary criticism and aesthetics. The article pays special attention to the discussion between Lu Xun and Hu Shi on the issue of the ideological position of writers, and Yu Dafu's articles on the role of the reception of Western aesthetics. The research methodology is based on the theoretical principles of historical-literary, historical-cultural, historical-functional, comparative-historical analysis. Elements of intertextual and receptive approaches are used. The main conclusion of the study is that the transition from the literary language of classical Confucian monuments (wenyan) to the spoken language (baihua) has become an important vector for Chinese literary theorists. However, their views on the future of modern national literature differed. Lu Xun insisted that the future of literature depended on the class affiliation of the literati. Yu Dafu believed that writers should use the experience of the best prose writers of classical literature in Western countries, and also take into account the literary inclinations of readers. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian Sinology, a comparative analysis of critical articles by prominent Chinese writers and literary theorists becomes the object of study.

Modern Chinese Buddhist Culture in the Greater Hangzhou Region in Yu Dafu’s Travel Notes

Buddhism has been a significant part of Hangzhou’s rich history. Throughout the twentieth century, Hangzhou’s Buddhist culture continued to inspire many Chinese writers, one of the most prominent being Yu Dafu. The writer stayed in Hangzhou several times during the 1920s and 1930s and wrote numerous travel notes, including many describing his and his friends’ visits to temples in and around Hangzhou. These short travel notes, written in modern Chinese with the characteristics of modern prose, opened a relationship between Buddhism and Chinese literature, effectively inaugurating a fresh genre of Chinese Buddhist literature. This paper focuses on Yu Dafu’s travel notes, considers extensive historical sources, and explores how they recorded and represented Chinese Buddhist culture in Hangzhou and more broadly. This paper also explores the reciprocal influence of contemporary Hangzhou’s Buddhist culture on writers’ cognitive frameworks, spiritual solace, and literary choices.

Romanticism in Works of Su Manshu and Yu Dafu: National Characteristics

The article examines the literary movement of romanticism as a creative method employed by Su Manshu and Yu Dafu, two Chinese writers of the first half of the 20th century. The novelty of the research lies in the comparative analysis of the works of these two popular literati, whose prose had a significant influence on the formation of modern Chinese literature. It is reported that the interest of Chinese writers in romantic sentiments was fueled by their exposure to European literature through translations into Japanese and Chinese. Both writers referred to themselves as romantics, but their reasons for being drawn to this artistic method were different. Su Manshu was captivated by the new genre features, such as biographies written from the author’s perspective rather than focusing solely on historical figures, which was sanctioned by traditional literature. Yu Dafu was attracted to the romantic artistic style for its ability to employ unconventional expressive means in Chinese literature. At the same time, the romantic compositions of both writers carry markers of national identity. For Su Manshu, this is evident in the portrayal of female characters, while for Yu Dafu, it is manifested in the use of nature imagery to convey the mood of the characters. The article highlights that the development of romanticism in Chinese literature has been insufficiently studied by Russian sinologists and holds prospects for further research.

The Spatiality of Poverty in Modern Chinese Realism

Abstract Early twentieth-century Chinese realist depictions of indoor space, such as the crowded tenement house and the penniless writer’s abode, enabled the portrayal of the physical and psychological exigencies of poverty. This set of narrative concerns arose in a period when Chinese writers were preoccupied with the alleged material and cultural poverty of China in comparison to the West. To remedy this purported backwardness, Chinese writers appropriated from foreign literatures, especially Russian realism, narrative themes and techniques such as the use of metonymy in the depiction of spatiality, the figure of the impoverished flâneur-like urban perambulator, and the very topic of poverty itself. This gave rise to innovative forms of modern Chinese narrative, tracing the spatial, material, and bodily experience of poverty in painstaking detail. In particular, I examine how Yu Dafu elaborates on literary elements from Russia in his 1924 story “Nights of Spring Fever,” which deploys the metonymic confines of impoverished, narrow spaces in order to explore wider topics of social class and transcultural encounter.

Reception of Alexander Herzen’s ‘My Past and Thoughts’ in China: Problems of Study and Influence

The article delves into the unique reception of Alexander Herzen’s ‘My Past and Thoughts’ in Chinese literary studies. It is noted that this chronicle has received widespread recognition in China and continues to generate significant interest to this day. It analyzes the reasons, characteristics, and aspects of the Russian classic's influence on Chinese literature in different historical periods. It highlights that the reception of ‘My Past and Thoughts’ by Chinese readers and scholars is determined by two factors: the great value of the work itself and the fact that Herzen’s work met the needs of Chinese society in various historical periods. The article shows that the main feature of the reception of Herzen’s works by Chinese researchers has evolved from socio-political domination to cultural-aesthetic dominance. ‘My Past and Thoughts’ has influenced both the theory and practice of modern Chinese literature, and contemporary Chinese writers have created works inspired by Herzen's approach. For instance, Ba Jin wrote ‘Thoughts’ under the influence of Herzen’s work, while Yu Dafu developed a literary theory of memoirs inspired by it. The authors conclude that Herzen studies in China are pertinent and offer extensive prospects for further research.

Brief Analysis on the Artistic Technique of Blurring Narrative Subject and its Extension —Take Yu Dafu’s “Degradation” as an Example

As a representative work of vernacular novels in Chinese new literature, “Degradation” sets up an unnamed protagonist and focuses on his inner world for a deep and comprehensive portrayal, thus forming the main content of the novel. This paper will explore the reason why the protagonist of the novel unnamed and the design idea behind it, discuss the revolutionary significance of this method of vague narrative by contrasting with previous literature, and its extension in other art forms today.

Rethinking the Modern Chinese Canon: Refractions across the Transpacific

Rethinking the Modern Chinese Canon: Refractions across the Transpacific

Going to the Countryside: The Rural in the Modern Chinese Cultural Imagination, 1915–1965

Going to the Countryside: The Rural in the Modern Chinese Cultural Imagination, 1915–1965

Translingual, Transcultural, and Transboundary Sceneries: Aesthetic Ideas and Discursive Practice in Yu Dafu’s Landscape Writing

The ways in which nature is watched and represented have changed rapidly alongside modernization in 20th-century China. This can be regarded as the product of an epistemological transformation led by the encounter of Chinese and Western cultures. One of the representatives in this transformation and fusion of seeing is Yu Dafu, who, although generally known for his fiction, penned many travel writings and descriptions of nature in the 1930s. Regarding Yu’s travelogue as an embodiment of his translingual and transcultural reflections, this paper reviews previous studies on Yu’s travelogue and investigates its latent creativity and antinomy. This article delves into the stylistic and aesthetic features of Yu’s travelogue to uncover the conservatism and misogyny obscured beneath the seemingly value-neutral landscapes, arguing that Yu’s travelogue is a twofold amalgamation of genres and aesthetics. On the one hand, his travel writing is an adaption and combination of the German Baedeker guidebooks and traditional Chinese travel notes (Youji ??). On the other hand, Yu’s texts incorporate aesthetic criteria influenced by different natural concepts, demonstrating both his broad vision ahead of time and his conservatism. Yu’s writing on nature and landscapes, as a discursive practice motivated by the emergence of tourism in his era, is a transboundary dialogue between literature and commerce, and the elite and the general public, while also implicitly denying the common people access to the scenery space. Through a close reading of Yu’s frequently employed tropes—picturesque and feminized scenes—I establish an isomorphic relationship between his views on nature, art, and female. Finally, the antinomy inherent in Yu’s landscape imaginary constructed by creativity and conservatism points to the ambiguity of the New Culture.

Experiencing and Writing East Asian (Post)modernity

The articles on China and Japan in this special issue deal with modernity and postmodernity as exemplified by modern Chinese writers, such as Yu Dafu (1896–1945) and Fei Ming (1901–1967); contemporary Chinese and Japanese writers, such as Can Xue and Sayaka Murata; and the connections between modern life and antiquarian book collections in Macau. These articles, hailing from the different perspectives provided by history, philosophy, and translation studies, collectively contribute to our understanding of the literary manifestation, reflection, and representation of modernity and postmodernity in twentieth-century China and Japan.

Neither remnants nor commodities: Spirit objects in early twentieth century Chinese regional fiction

This paper examines the regional fiction of early twentieth century China in order to understand how such texts presented the object world of rural life. In doing so it addresses a gap in the historiography of material culture in modern China, which has emphasized urban commodity regimes and has paid far less attention to the ways in which pre-existing object practices endured into the time of the modern Republic. Building off of the methodological insights of scholars such as Bill Brownand Janet Poole regarding the contribution that literary study can make to historical understandings of material cultures, this paper argues that the regional texts of Lu Xun, Xu Qinwen, Ye Shengtao, and Yu Dafu were bewitched by overlapping life worlds: one represented by the secular rationalism of the text's narrators, and the other represented by the animistic practices of the rural others they encounter, which was expressed through objects such as joss sticks, temple doorsills, and ancestral alters. These literary works reflected upon how objects were used to make meaning in ways that were not reducible to urban commodity fetishism or remnant “superstition.” As presented in these works, spiritual objects remain powerfully active parts of the affective worlds of rural people, collapsing binary distinctions between living language and inanimate matter, the human and the ghostly, the past and the present. For the narrators of these texts, these object practices invoke a complicated mixture of modernizing critique and empathetic recognition. As such, these texts allow readers to witness the early expressions of a complex dialectic of rejection and recognition/accommodation that has marked the attitude modernizing states in China have taken in relation to animistic material cultures over the past century.

Between Rigor and Reverence. Yu Dafu and His Views on Translation

Despite his prominence in modern Chinese literature and the significant role played by translation in his literary career, Yu Dafu’s (1896-1945) activity as a translation theorist and practitioner remains largely unexplored. Yu translated into Chinese a number of short stories, treatises, and poems by such authors as Wilde, Twain, Sinclair, Nietzsche, and Rousseau; he also devoted several essays to the issue of translation and its practice. Through an analysis of Yu’s theoretical writings, I aim to provide a brief account of his reflections on the subjectivity of the translator, the principles of a desirable translating practice, the relation between translation and original writing, and the cultural significance of translation. By doing so, I wish to highlight the seminal role played by such a reflection in Yu’s artistic career, as well as the specificity of his contribution within the intellectual debate on translation in his time.

Reception of Dostoevsky’s Creativity in Chinese Translations, Works of Art and Scientific Research

The article is devoted to a survey analysis of F. M. Dostoevsky’s reception in the works of fiction of Chinese writers and in scientific literary studies. The main features of the translations of Dostoevsky’s texts and studies of the Russian classic in different historical periods, which were determined by the socio-cultural attitudes and ideological orientation that dominate in China, are considered. It is noted that the representation of Dostoevsky in China from the very beginning was not an exclusively cultural phenomenon, but was associated with the desire of the progressive intellectuals to create a modern national literature. Based on historical facts and scientific research, it is established that Dostoevsky’s reception is represented in the artistic world of modern Chinese writers of different generations, in particular Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, Tie Ning and many others, but deep comparative studies have been carried out only in relation to writers of the 1920s and 1940s years. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the political and cultural background and ideological attitudes in the perception of Dostoevsky’s creativity and views by Chinese writers. It is shown that Dostoevsky’s reception in China is pragmatic and one-sided: Chinese writers highly appreciated Dostoevsky’s humanistic attitude towards the “humiliated and insulted”, but generally did not accept his religious ideas.

How Does Affective Disorder Relate to Creativity? The Pathography of the Chinese Writer Yu Dafu

Background: Yu Dafu, arguably one of the greatest writers in modern Chinese history, is characterized by critics as having a sentimental and decadent style. His life is clearly marked by mood bipolarity, and it seems that his creativity was affected by extreme emotional states. However, this link remains unclear. Methods: Yu’s self-assessments in his works and letters are analyzed from the perspective of current psychiatric classifications. Examples are extracted from his writing career and habits to help illuminate the relationship between mental disorders and literary creativity. Results: Yu’s writing career seems to be divided into four blocks. He was in a deep depression when he studied abroad and taught in China and experienced a hypomanic episode afterward, when he created a magazine and fell in love. The pattern of his mood changes is consistent with the symptoms of bipolar II disorder. His maintenance of a high degree of literary productivity alongside his anguish during depressive episodes may suggests mixed states. Conclusions: Mood changes shaped Yu’s life and writing career. Depressive and hypomanic moods enhanced his creativity in several ways, and some situations in his life indicate that writing and literary pursuits also have reverse effects on one’s mental state. The perspective that mental disorders are seen as a certain profile of literary career can help us to better understand the writers.

The Title of the Collection of Yu Dafu «沉论》(1921) as an Image of Perception and Self-perception

The relevance of the research is determined by the interest of modern literary criticism to the issues of reflection in the artistic word of the processes of perception of each other by ethnic groups. The novelty of the work is defined by the appeal to the previously unpublished in Russia and not studied text of the collection by Yu Dafu Chen Lun as a source of reconstruction of the image of Japan's perception by the Chinese intelligentsia of the 1920s-1940s and self-perception. The problem of the research is to reconstruct the semantic content of the Chinese lexeme 沉 论 （Chen Lun) as an artistic concept of the image of Japan's perception and self-perception of the Chinese living there. The purpose of the work is to explicate the ideological and psychological mechanisms of creating images of perception and self-perception of the Chinese in the prose of Yu Dafu as a representative of the Left Wing of Chinese literature in the 1920s-1940s. The methodology of the work is based on a comparative analysis of the ideological and thematic content of the book and the semantics of the title of the collection, translations of these titles into Russian and English in different historical periods. The author uses historical-literary, comparative-historical methods, lexical-semantic analysis, comparative analysis of translation and translations with the original, conceptual analysis. On the basis of a comparative analysis of Russian and English translations of story titles (〇mut - Whirlpool), a lexical and semantic analysis of the word 沉论， key concepts and ideas of the collection, the author proposes another version of the translation into Russian as Pogryazshie (Drowned). The heroes of the Yu Dafu collection are young reflective Chinese intellectuals who came to Japan in the mid-1910s, have ambivalent feelings: the desire to see in Japan and the Japanese a model for self-improvement, and at the same time - dislike for the “higher” culture in relation to China. This study helps to reconstruct with psychological certainty the image of perception of Japan and the Japanese by revolutionary-minded Chinese youth of the 1920s, to explicate their image of self-perception, ideas about their own ethnos and ways of development of the Chinese state and Chinese ethnicity in this historical period. Keywords: literary images of perception, poetics of translation, China, Japan

郁?夫玄?健的?作?格比? ― 以《??行》和《?妻》的情景交融?主

郁?夫玄?健的?作?格比? ― 以《??行》和《?妻》的情景交融?主

ТВОРЧЕСКАЯ СПЕЦИФИКА РУССКОЙ ЭМИГРАНТСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ В КИТАЕ

The article is devoted to analysing “superfluous men” images in the Russian literature of the XIX century and in the prosaic works of the Chinese writer of the first half of the XX century Yu Dafu whose literary heritage is still insufficiently studied in the Russian literary criticism. The common features of “superfluous men” in the Russian literature and in Yu Dafu’s creative work are identified: under the conditions of the feudal society torn apart by sharp contradictions, all the personages sought changes but couldn’t realize their ideals. The paper provides a comparative characteristic of the personages considered as “superfluous men” in the literary works of the Russian authors and Yu Dafu, identifies the distinctive features of “superfluous men” in the Russian prose and in Yu Dafu’s prose. The differences are conditioned by the following factors: different historical backgrounds for the origin of the “superfluous man” image; original approaches of the Russian writers and the Chinese writer to analysing the “superfluous man” phenomenon.