Advances in Humanities Research
Vol. 2, 28 February 2023
Open
Access | Article
“Disinterested” and Critical: A Comparative Study of the Social Implications of Miu Fenglin and Matthew Arnold’s Literary Thinking
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
According to previous scholarship, China’s Xueheng literary school in the early 20th century is an antagonist to the then prevalent New Culture Movement as the former is claimed to insist on a conservation of traditional thoughts. Matthew Arnold’s thinking is a major source of one representative figure of the Xueheng school, Miu Fenglin. A comparative analysis of the literary thinking of Matthew Arnold and Miu Fenglin suggests that both thinkers have actually shed light on how literature should be relevant to its time and transcend it with a pursuit of truth. With references to the thinkers’ respective social backgrounds, the paper contends that their literary thoughts offer critical perspectives into the societies. By bringing in the cases of Miu Fenglin and Matthew Arnold, the paper also intends to further the discussion of the role of literature in the society.
Keywords
Matthew Arnold, Miu Fenglin, function of literature, modern China
References
1. Wu, M. (1922) General Rules of “The Critical Review”. Xueheng 3:1. p.1.
2. Zhang, B. Zhang taiyan’s vernacular writings. Liaoning Education Publishing House, Shenyang. p.64.
3. Lu, X. (1982) Examining The Critical Review. In: Xun, L. (Eds.) Anthology of Lu Xun. People’s Publishing House, Beijing. pp. 223-246.
4. Hu, S. (1991) The Revolutionary Movement of Literature. In: Ming, H. (Eds.), Selected writings of Hushih. Tianjin People’s Publishing House, Tianjin. pp.140-170.
5. Zhou, Y. (2005) A study of the thoughts of the Xueheng School. Gansu People’s Publishing House, Lanzhou. p.63.
6. Shen, W. (2000) Wu Mi and the Xueheng School. Henan University, Zhengzhou. p.15.
7. Gao, C. (2022) Xueheng school and the new literature movement. Shanghai Book Store Publishing: Shanghai. p.161
8. Wu, M. (1995) The Self-Edited Annals of Wu Mi. Beijing Sanlian Book Store Publishing: Beijing. p.229.
9. Miu, F. (1992) On the virtue of literature. Xueheng, 3: 14-30. p.25.
10. Zhou, S. (2009) The Xueheng School’s intellectual resources—Matthew Arnold’s cultural criticism and Irving Babbitt’s Humanism. Tunghai Journal of Chinese Literature 21: 149-178. p.165.
11. Li, W. (2018) The Chinese echo of Matthew Arnold’s cultural criticism: on Arnold and the Xueheng School. Journal of Nanchang University (Humanities and Social Sciences), 4: 116-124. p.116.
12. Zhu, X. (2017) Xueheng school in China’s modern higher education: centering on its humanistic education thought and research. Diss. Zhejiang University, Jiangsu. p.143.
13. Li, R. (2018) Xueheng school’s thinking of literature and culture. Diss. Shanxi University, Taiyuan. p.118.
14. Zhang, W. (1995) The cultural conservatism of Xueheng School and its influence. Historiography Quarterly 4: 89-102. p.89.
15. Yu, X. A Strategic Universalism: An Interpretation of Chinese Cultural Conservatism Through a Case Study of the Xueheng School. In: Kelly, C., Garfield L.C.G. (Eds.). Cross-Cultural Encounters in Modern and Premodern China: Global Networks, Mediation, and Intertextuality. Springer, Singapore. p.25.
16. Arnold, M. (1914) The Function of Criticism at the Present Time. In: Humphrey M. (Eds.) Essays by Matthew Arnold. Oxford UP, London. pp. 9-36. p.25.
17. Arnold, M. (2006) Culture and Anarchy. Ed. Jane Garnett. Oxford UP, London.p.77.
18. Arnold, M. (1904) Democracy. In: Mathew, A. (Eds.) Mixed Essays, Irish Essays and Other Essays. Macmillan, New York. pp. 1-35. p.26.
19. Li, W. (2018) The Chinese echo of Matthew Arnold’s cultural criticism: on Arnold and the Xueheng School. Journal of Nanchang University (Humanities and Social Sciences), 4: 116-124. p.123.
20. Wu, M. (1922) General Rules of “The Critical Review”. Xueheng 3:1. p.1.
21. Zhou, R. (2018) The dissemination and transformation of British and American literary criticism in modern China. Sichuan University Publishing House, Chengdu.p.274.
22. Yue, D. (1989) Modern Chinese conservatism in the global cultural dialogue. Chinese Culture 1: 132-136. p.132.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Authors who publish this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open Access Instruction).
- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries (ICEIPI 2022), Part III
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-915371-11-9
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-915371-12-6
- Published Date
- 28 February 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/2/20220644
- Copyright
- © 2023 The Author(s)
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited