Lu Xun, World Poetry, and Poetic Worlding

Chapter 1 examines Lu Xun’s engagement with world poetry. Despite being a prolific and complex author, Lu Xun was recognized outside of China mainly as a fiction writer, although his fiction composed only a small portion of his publications. Beginning with Lu Xun’s essay on Mara poetry that he wrote in 1908 while still in Japan, the chapter reflects on Lu Xun’s life-long interest in foreign poetry. The figure of Lu Xun that emerges is a Promethean poet, grappling with the crisis of worlding inflicted by the revolutionary urgency of poetry. By tracing three poetic moments in Lu Xun’s life, including his poetic composition and translation, the chapter underscores the poetico-political dynamic in modern Chinese literature, and questions the possibility of constructing an anti-imperialist and anti-hegemonic poetic world space.