Selected Essays of Lu Xun

Author: Lu Xun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: The essay (also referred to by Lu Xun as "miscellaneous thoughts" or "short comments") has a long history in China, but the rise, development, and flourishing of modern essays are inseparable from the name of Lu Xun. In Lu Xun's works, the essay becomes a free form of depicting the social reality, describing observations, commenting on human affairs, and expressing personal sentiments. Its content is all-encompassing, carrying the mission of enlightening thought and resisting reality. Thus, with its profound ideological depth and unique artistic perfection, it ascends to the pinnacle of Chinese literature and enters the "high platform of fashionable literature" (from the preface to Xu Mao's A Collection of Random Notes in The Second Collection of Essays from Ji Jie).
Regarding essay writing, Lu Xun possessed a clear and purposeful consciousness, embodying his serious, lofty, and persistent pursuit of thought and spirit. He once said, "I have long hoped that Chinese youth would stand up to criticize Chinese society and civilization without hesitation." (From the Preface to A Collection of Essays Under the Lotus Cap) Lu Xun's essays are precisely such social and cultural critiques. This critique, as he himself described it, "is an immediate response or resistance to harmful things, serving as a sensitive nerve and a means of offense and defense" (From the Preface to Essays from Ji Jie), and is "a dagger and a throwing spear" (From Nan Qiang Bei Diao Ji The Crisis of Short Essays).