Abstract:
In terms of new cultural philosophy, the May4th Movement was a great and an unfinished great movement. It was great because it initiated a new start for Chinese ideology and culture and Chinese society, and it was unfinished because one enlightening movement could not solve all the problems China was faced with. Lu Xun mentioned two issues emphatically in his interpreting the May4th Movement: the vernacular Chinese movement and the new style movement. He thought the vernacular Chinese movement was successful, for both progressive and retrogressive ideas could be represented in vernacular Chinese. In the May4th Movement, many new styles were attempted, which helped elevate the position of novels, which was, however, not as popular with people as critical essays. In his late days, Lu Xun showed more concern with popularity. Although some scholars think Lu Xun’s literary thought is of affinity to the people, I’d rather introduce the term “folk character”, for Lu had never discussed literature in terms of “the people”.
