Falanxi wenxue [La Littérature française] (1923) et le 4 Mai : historiographie, édition et modernité

Abstract

The first histories of French literature in Chinese were published after the launch of the New Culture Movement, in 1917. However, not all of these histories conformed to the spirit of the Movement. Falanxi wenxue [French Literature], published by Yuan Changying in 1923 at the Commercial Press, is an example of this. The work is included in the “Small Encyclopedic Collection,” whose inspiration comes from Wang Yunwu, the editor-in-chief of the collection, reading The Encyclopædia Britannica [British Encyclopedia] in the late Qing Dynasty. The appearance of Falanxi wenxue in the collection is due to the personal relationship between Wang Yunwu and Yuan Changying, rather than a project to systematically introduce foreign literature into China. In Falanxi wenxue, Yuan Changying condemns Medieval literature and praises Classicism and the Parnassians. This position fits with the author's taste for outfits and her passion for Greek mythology. Yuan Changying appreciates Louis XIV and has little taste for the spirit of freedom carried by Romanticism. The same contrast appears between Yuan Changying's praise of the prosperity of the European society and the condemnation of its liberalism. The gap between Falanxi wenxue and the spirit of May 4 proves even clearer through the comparison with Faguo wenxueshi [History of French literature] by Li Huang, marked by the progressivism of the time.

Keywords

• Falanxi wenxue
• May 4
• modernity