Which Zhou Zuoren to introduce?
Until recently, Zhou Zuoren was mostly mentioned in handbooks and histories as one of the principal promoters of “new literature” during the May Fourth period. His crucial manifestos (“Humane Literature,” “The Revolution of Thought,” “A Literature of the Common People,” “Requisites of the New Literature,” etc.[6]) identify him a leading theorist of the new literature, alongside the likes of Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi. This decisive role in the movement endowed him with prestige and authority in the intellectual world. His apparent ideological reversal in Our own Garden (Ziji de yuandi, 1923)–a collection of essays that affirms the autonomy of literature, contrary to the militant conception for which he argued not long before in “Humane Literature”–is therefore particularly spectacular, and helped to nourish misunderstandings about his person and his work throughout his career. Indeed, his consciousness of an enduring frustration among a portion of his readers with his positions had a real
