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The Chinese Renaissance: A Transcultural Reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gang Zhou
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Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which the idea of renaissance was understood and appropriated by Chinese intellectuals in the early twentieth century. My discussion foregrounds Hu Shi, one of the most important intellectual leaders in modern China and the main architect of the Chinese vernacular movement. I analyze his rewriting and reinvention of the European Renaissance as well as his declaration and presentation of the Chinese Renaissance in various contexts. Hu's creative uses of the Italian Renaissance and passionate claims for a Chinese Renaissance reveal the performative magic of the word renaissance and prompt us to ask what a renaissance is. The Chinese Renaissance and the fact that various non-European countries have declared and promoted their own renaissances invite a scholarly reconsideration of “renaissance” as a trans-cultural phenomenon rather than as a critical category originated and therefore owned by a certain culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 120 , Issue 3 , May 2005 , pp. 783 - 795
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2005

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