The Far Eastern Republic Volume 1-2; A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Republic of China (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ...by University Monthly, the Renainance, Pacific, NewEducation, Weekly Review, New China, Journal of Political Science, and many newspapers and periodicals. In the University, Messrs. Shen Yui-mai and Chu Hi-chow, professors of Chinese literature, have made a great achievement in Experimental Poetry and other writings by the use of the spoken language. Messrs. Huh Hu and Chen Ta-Chi have used it in their works on philosophy and psychology which are greatly welcomed by the country. Outside of the university, the movement influenced the most famous writers, including Mr. Liang ChiChao, whose writings have greatly influenced the Chinese people for twenty years, and now writes his Sunday sermons in the spoken language. Mr. Hu has written: "It is to free ourselves from these shackles that we are now proposing the adoption of spoken Chinese as our literary medium. For, doubtless, one of the most important causes for this deplorable retrogression of Chinese literature has been the anachronous employment of a dead language which is no longer adequate for the expression of ideas and sentiments of the nation. In these days of intense living and modernized thinking, this linguistic inadequacy has become more apparent than it ever was before. In order to express an enriched content, it is necessary first to secure the emancipation of the literary form. The old bottle can no longer hold the new wine. If we truly wish to give China a literature which shall not only be expressive of the real life and thoughts of our own time but also be an effec tive force in intellectual and social reforms, we must first emancipate ourselves from the fetter of the dead language which may once have been a fitting literary instrument for our forefathers, but which certainly is not adequ...